So, 2011. It has been real.
It started off a little frustrating—I’d just changed my concentration at Medill and then was very confused about why I was staying there at all. Not great things were happening with my mom’s life (which found her moving in with me), and I was trying to sort out what I’d do post-graduation. But! I made some amazing, lifelong friends at Medill. Traveled to Paris and London. Got my little munkin faced dog back. Moved into an amazing apartment in Seattle. Started a challenging (if occasionally super frustrating) job. I had some incredible false starts with a series of boys that made me realize that oh wow, I need to be more picky or less picky, or anything other than what brought me to the man children I endured dating-wise this year.
All in all, it has been a year of incredible growth, of facing challenges with the kind of gusto and steadfastness that reminds me that, yeah, despite my love of Disney movies and the soundtracks that accompany them, I am in fact I guess…sort of? An adult now. Which, yes, duh. I am 27. So that was obvious. But growing up, you expect the milestone that puts you at adulthood to be more official and less arbitrary. Why 27 and not 18? Or 21? Or 23?
I started listening to the song above on loop in February of this year. I’d blast it as I walked through the snowy, icy streets of Evanston, contemplating what was next for me. Whatever odd frivolity drove me through the first few years of my post-college life had disappeared entirely, and I was left watching people at home get married and have children, and I kept wondering “What am I doing with my life?”
And I realized (finally), that where other people found their purpose and happiness in getting married and having children and settling down, maybe mine was something else entirely. I’d have to set about to having a real purpose…because “where you invest your love, you invest your life.” So no ring on my left hand, no mortgage in my name, but a collection of life experiences and learning that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
What a year.
2012, what do you have in store?
