A field guide to growing up without growing apart
Guys- my mom likes Donald Trump. I don’t mean that she is crazy about him or thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread, but she likes him, respects him, and would vote for him for president. To me, Donald Trump appears obtuse and […]
I don’t know if I’m happy. I’ve been working really hard the last few months at a new job and it feels really good. I like the concept of the company; I like the odds that it will succeed – setting me up with some […]
Two weeks ago I wasn’t doing well.
I was unemployed, broke, and completely at a loss of what to do next. My confidence was dismal from all the job rejections and my roommate had just gotten a dog even though she knew I was allergic. I had the flu, my lowest bank account balance ever and one of my closest in person friends had just gotten a new job in Denver and made the move.
I was happy that two of my high school friends had just gotten engaged to their significant others but that also reminded me how fast the world was moving on without me and I dealt with it by getting accidentally wasted on a Tuesday night out at the bars. I had a great time flirting with a hot skier, we sang karaoke and I bought a round of tequila shots for strangers when I lost life size Jenga, until I found myself puking in the bathroom and waking up the most hungover I’ve EVER been. I couldn’t move all day. To make matters even worse, exactly a year earlier I had brought all of this upon myself by quitting my cushy job at an engineering company in order to travel Europe for 5 months, choosing to pause my real life in order to hopefully reroute it in a better direction.
I don’t regret leaving my job and traveling, or even working a simple summer job in my hometown once I got back, but the goal of my trip was to figure out what to do next, and for the life of me I couldn’t. In the months following what was definitely a high point of my life I now found myself entirely directionless and lost. Nothing made sense and nothing felt right.
So two weeks ago, in the midst of what I can easily say was the lowest point of my life, I woke up to a text from a family friend I’d been networking with. I was in a fever induced flu haze so I almost just went back to sleep, but as I read that he wanted me to come meet him and his new business partner for coffee I knew I had to go or I’d regret it.
I willed myself out of bed and into the shower, telling myself I just had to say hello and then I could go back and sleep the rest of the day. This proved to be mostly true, except a few minutes after I arrived they told me I had a job if I wanted it and that while they could only pay me $1,600 per month since they were a startup, I’d be getting in on the ground floor of a really exciting company, one that they expect to grow quickly.
As I went home to sleep and think about the offer I was reluctant to really believe things would work out. Maybe I heard them wrong or they’d realize I wasn’t the right fit, or maybe I wouldn’t like the work or decide I need a job with a better salary. But now that I’ve worked full time for them the past two weeks, it’s only today that I wake up and feel confident saying I am officially employed again and realize how completely relieved I am that this opportunity came along.
It’s a ton of work already, I’ve worked easily 50 hours this week alone and I’m on-call at all hours of the day for the CEO to ask for help. My official title is Executive Assistant but he’s introduced me as a Project Manager and an Operations Manager already. I’m one of three full time employees in addition to 15 other part time people and we’ve been working out of coffee shops and from home since we don’t yet have an office. So far I’ve edited proposal documents, set up a file system to organize the files for the entire company, taken meeting notes, pretended to be a college newspaper reporter to get information on a potential new client, recommended three software programs, built a few page templates, gone over my monthly phone minutes, decided to fix website bugs, and booked plane tickets to an upcoming conference in Chicago that I have to go to in April.
I just found out I am going to Las Vegas in two weeks to be the contact point between a new client and our company and later today I’m doing site testing on a new version of our website. I finished my taxes yesterday to find I get a $600 refund and I won a raffle prize on Friday for a dog walking adventure that I’m genuinely excited to bring my roommate’s dog on. It’s ridiculous to think about how different my life looked two weeks ago.
I know everything still isn’t ideal. I’m still broke, now overworked, and living with a dog I’m allergic to, but I also have a job that I’m excited about and friends that are always there to listen to me rant. And though much of my life I still have no idea about, for the first time in a while I can picture what my future could be. And that alone makes everything else worth it.
And hey, if I hate it I can always quit to travel again, right?
Onward and upward! We’ve loved every minute of our time at wordpress.com but in honor of the new year (2015 already?! SERIOUSLY?!) we’ve upgraded to an official site! www.twentysomethingcondition.com If you’re already following us your subscription should be transferred automatically and if not please turn […]
It seems like everything always changes on my birthday. In my first year of college my birthday was the day that really solidified my friendship with the naughty princesses and made Seattle seem like home. On my birthday the year after I decided to apply […]
So there was this guy.
I know, I know, for as single as I am (hint: very) I write about boys a disproportional amount. How many crushes and almosts can a girl really talk about before her friends start to worry? But, please, bear with me (at least) one more time because this one means a lot to me. It even has a happy ending! I promise.
I’ve told you already about the river trips my family goes on every summer and what a magical thing they can be, throwing people together who otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to really connect and helping to put our distracted lives into a focused perspective. We float and laugh, cry and hike, hug and play. These camping trips have shaped me into the person I am today, feeding me lesson after lesion that I’ve taken back to the real world and built my life around. It makes sense that this story begins with one.
On the river trip the summer before my senior year of high school I met this guy. To talk about who I was then is difficult; in many ways that 17 year old seems so different than who I am now. But what I internalized on that week long adventure has become a fixed point in my life that I can credit with so much of who I am today. It’s become a milestone for me, a moment in time that completely shifted who I thought I could be and how I’d go about getting there.
I was just about to start my senior year of high school, and while I never lacked for friends or things to do, I lacked what all 17 year olds lack, self-confidence and direction. When I met him it felt like he, Kelsey, was exactly what I never knew I was missing. Nearly 30, he had more confidence and charisma than anyone I’d ever met. His energy was endless and enthusiasm unwavering; he said what he felt and knew who he was.
He was my friend’s cousin, tagging along on our adventure for no reason other than because he’d been invited. In a way I was just tagging along too, showing up on these trips because my family chose to. He and I became fast friends on the trip, mostly because I like to listen and he liked to talk, but also because we were both at a crossroads in our lives, both trying to figure out which parts of who we were would carry over to who we were going to become. I was a blank canvas, about to apply to colleges and break out on my own, and he was faced with an ultimatum, marry his girlfriend or walk away.
Over the course of the week we became what I can only remember as inseparable, though it’s been almost ten years so it’s likely at least some things have been romanticized. Whenever I found myself alone he’d arrive soon after, asking me my thoughts or showing me something new. In group conversations he’d look to see if I was laughing, or move closer to me so we could better connect. When we played horseshoes I was on his team, when we played badminton I was his biggest threat. When we played Frisbee he always threw to me and when we played touch football he picked me up and spun me around instead of blocking. We were physical and verbal, emotional and crass, young and unafraid.
He saw me, took the time to ask what I thought about things, learn who I was, explore who I wanted to become. We were always the last to bed, staying up long after most people had left the campfire, talking of life or sports or whatever else we could think of. I felt like his go to person. And for that week I was.
On the last night we stayed up talking about life and love and he said some classic line like, I bet those high school boys are lining up for you. I insecurely brushed it off, shaking my head and laughing like that was absurd. I’ll never forget how he looked at me silently for a second and then exploded, standing up and yelling to the star-filled sky that what I’d just done was total bullshit, that it’s a travesty that girls like me ever feel like they aren’t amazing. He kept talking and pacing as he explained that confidence is the most attractive and important thing anyone can have and that being secure and strong and sure of yourself is the only thing that matters. We’re only wasting time worrying whether or not we’re beautiful enough or interesting, he said, just believe you are those things and it becomes true.
After a second he sat down next to me and made sure I looked him in the eyes when he said, you’re beautiful, never question that.
He made me promise to never forget it and while in the years since I have, of course, questioned that, I can always come back to that moment when he told me that beauty is in your actions.
When I came back to my life without him I didn’t know how to explain what had happened. How do you tell your high school friends that because a guy saw you, for the first time you saw yourself?
As I tried to tell them the story fell flat, my friends demanding the rest of the story. Is that all that happened? Are you sure you’re not leaving anything out? You didn’t kiss him!? How old was he? You’re lying! My vulnerable ego wanted, needed them to understand how I’d changed, so I hastily embellished a few details, hoping that saying we’d kissed would help them connect with what had happened.
It was immature and unnecessary and I eventually told my friends the truth of it, but in the years since I’ve thought of that week often, reminding myself of the significance of his words and the lessons I learned in trying to explain them afterward.
This weekend on a trip to Chicago I saw him again. I was nervous, of course, not wanting the man who has become a fixed point in my life to let me down, or worse, to let him down myself. I was about to see how much can change in ten years and find out whether my memory had led me astray. What if I’d imagined our connection, or if he’d forgotten me? What if he’d lost himself over the years, or what if hadn’t actually taken what he’d said to heart? With a deep breath I put on a brave face and walked through the door with confidence, shaking his hand along with all the other people I’d met here and there across my lifetime.
My fake confidence worked and I found myself talking freely and laughing along with the group. I took care to win over his kids and showed interest in what he said, doing my best to figure out if any of what we’d had would resurface.
It wasn’t long before it felt like he and I were alone.
He showed me things around his yard and met my eyes as he placed a fuzzy caterpillar on my hand. He moved closer to me as he scrolled through photos of cool insects on his phone and teased me as we played keep away with a football. All those feelings from before were right where we’d left them, just waiting to resurface.
When I asked him about the chestnut tree that my dad had given him after our river trip he led me through a gate and away from the others. Just the two of us walked around the other side of the house and talked like no time had passed. He joked, I provoked, and we saw each other again. I couldn’t stop smiling, not because I thought anything would happen or even should happen, but it just felt nice to be alone with him. Alone with an awesome man who in so many ways changed my life and was still that same person I had cherished.
He has no idea how much he shaped me with just one week, but it was nice to feel like I’d grown up to represent him well. He even offered up some advice like he did before, telling me that the one thing about kids is that once you have them, your time is no longer your own. Have a plan by 30, he said, because after that there is no time to change things up or figure anything out.
When it was time for us to leave he sought me out for a hug, holding me tightly so I knew we’d done right by each other. It felt good to be in his arms, in the way that everything I’d ever felt with him was valid and reciprocated. I knew he was proud of me, and he knew I was proud of him.
And better yet, as I walked out the door of his house, I realized I was proud of myself.
Well, the wedding is over. Deep breath. I easily spent half of my summer working on crafts and support from my friend’s wedding and now that it’s done I feel more than exhaustion, I feel relief. My time is my own again! And while I […]
As 20somethings we’re no strangers to failure, often finding ourselves paralyzed by indecision or blinded by ambition. We cringe daily at what we didn’t do and what we haven’t become, what we said and what we believed and yet, as much as we stumble we […]
The idea of a Bucket list has never really appealed to me. It seems like making a list of things to do before you die is so definitive and constricting. What happens if you die without completing it? What happens if you complete it and still don’t feel finished? What happens if you grow up a little and realize that skydiving isn’t actually a real thing you want to spend your money on? The whole things just seems negative, like a weird competition that you can never win. And isn’t completing a list something we should always be actively working towards? If I write down that I… want to go to Africa, then shouldn’t I start saving up money now and looking at plane tickets and talking to people and working to make it happen? Lists are things worth striving for, and promising yourself that you’ll do things is just too much.
All that being said, tomorrow I’m about to complete something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. On Monday morning I catch a flight back to the USA from Dublin, my last stop on a 5 month tour of Europe, and the end of a lifelong dream will come true.
This trip has been crazy, filled with ups and downs, friends and strangers, cities and landscapes, and it’s completely surreal to think that in a little over 24 hours I’ll be done. I don’t know quite how to process it, because, really, what happens after a dream comes true?
And it wasn’t really just one dream that came true either. I got to do tons of things I’ve hoped to do my entire life. I got to travel alone, visit Stonehenge, watch a show at the Globe, go to Denmark, cheer a friend’s ski race in the World Cup, see a band I love play to a crowd that doesn’t speak English. And while I don’t really feel like I’ve checked these things on my list, I do feel like I’ve added them. I want to do them again, do them in different ways, do things that make me feel as good as they did. Doesn’t it make more sense to add things to a list of happiness than to cross things off of a list of death?!
But the argument for making goals and working to make them happen must still be worth something, even if the idea of a bucket list is problematic. On an overnight train a few months ago I met a woman who was on her way home from a Dixie Chicks concert that she’d saved and planned for since 2001. As we talked she explained that she’d left her child and husband at home for the weekend and purposely chose to see this concert alone, so she could better live in the moment without worrying whether her friend or husband was enjoying it as much a she was. By going to see her favorite band play she’d completed a tiny goal she’d had for a while, and it was moving to listen to her tell me that life is about little moments like that, where you find something worthwhile and make it happen. She said she was excited to think of a new one now, that having something to work towards makes the rest of life so much more beautiful.
I have no plan or idea what comes next in my life. I’ll arrive in the states tomorrow and move back in with my parents, jobless and exhausted. But I’ll have completed a life long dream, and really for all the plans and goals and lists, all that matters is how I feel right now. And you know what, I feel happy.
Hello! It feels like forever since I last posted, funny how that seems to be the theme we’ve got going lately, all of us princesses sort of putting this old blog on the back burner while real life takes all our attention. We’ve been at […]
Today is my last day of work. Its slow here, not much left to do now that my time is almost up. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time, it’s different than I expected though; I didn’t think I’d be so […]
It’s my birthday! And Cindy’s birthday! And we’re turning 25. Holy. Crap.
This time last year Cindy wrote a beautiful ode to our twinship, explaining how learning of our shared birthday has become such an important part of our lives since. This year I wanted to return the love, taking a second to express my gratitude to the universe for allowing me to share a birthday with a friend, especially her.
When I was younger my birthday was the best event of the year. My creative parents allowed me to dream big, putting together epic pie baking events, dress up performances and jewelry box decorating bliss. One year we had a scavenger hunt at the airport, running from terminal to terminal to find a purple suitcase or a photograph of 4 or more people and another birthday we rode the light rail train in circles while we played games and got to know the big city. I even remember my dad making me a PVC pipe teepee for my Pocahontas-themed party one year, my mother helping us make our own fringe covered purses to tote around proudly. Back then birthdays were things to be celebrated, excuses for all your friends to come together to celebrate you (and the Spice Girls), but once you hit high school all that changes.
Suddenly it is no longer cool to plan birthday adventures, and even if you do, good luck getting all of your friends to agree to join in. Jessica can’t stand Brittany and Katie would never have fun doing that, besides, Sally doesn’t have any time anyway. In high school I’d be lucky if I got four or five people together to see a movie and go get ice cream, much less trap all my friends in one room to do something really awesome.
And let’s not forget the added pressure we feel as we’re taught to apologize for getting ‘older.’ All we want to do when we’re younger is grow up and become the people we’re meant to be, but with little warning that optimism is crushed, unexpectedly turned on its head as people remind you again and again that aging is bad. Sure you want your driver’s license and to be 21 so you can go to those cool concerts, but you also know that it’s all downhill from there – birthdays only bringing you closer and closer to the end of your youth ( i.e. the end of your happiness). In high school you learn your birthday is no longer an accomplishment; instead it becomes something to avoid, something you’ve done wrong.
I had low birthday expectations when I moved away for college since my birthday came around only a month in, leaving me with limited time to build my friend group or hope for any type of celebration. Had Cindy not taken me in and allowed me to crash her party my day would have gone something like, “Hey, I’m Booty, want to be my friend and celebrate my birthday even though we just met!?” Instead we ate funfetti and had our first twin competition (wii tennis is intense!), bonding over much more than a shared day of birth and our love of basketball. It was the day I knew I’d found friends I’d have for a while, a turning point in the way my life would go from there on out, a birthday I love to remember.
Ever since I’ve found myself looking forward to our shared birthday, excited to know that no matter how the year went I’d always have someone to celebrate with. And celebrate we did, taking groups of friends out to dinners and bars, exploring arcades and running through city fountains. We stayed up until midnight to buy our first bottle of alcohol together and even stayed in to paint our stomachs on our 22nd just because we’d always wanted to. With Cindy by my side we recreated those birthday adventures of my youth in even more wonderful ways, allowing ourselves to dream big because we had a guaranteed partner, a guaranteed reason to celebrate.
The year after we graduated, Cindy’s soon to be fiancé asked me to help him propose on our birthday, planning an elaborate scavenger hunt and flying in from out of town to surprise her with a ring. I agreed wholeheartedly of course, though admittedly there were moments I was worried that this new anniversary would infringe on our special day. We were already feeling the pressure of graduation and moving forward with out lives, would the loss of this connection make things even harder?
But everything turned out perfectly, because his elaborate proposal allowed me and Cindy (and Snow) to share a day of adventure that I’ll always cherish. When I think of that day, I think of all the fun we had running around Seattle following his clues and enjoying each other. I think of the beautiful photos I got to take of my friend on one of the happiest days of her life. I think of how much I love her and how grateful I am to be her twin.
This year I miss her more than ever, but without her I’ve realized how important it is to ask for what I want on my birthday. No longer do adventures just fall into place, and no longer can I settle for a lame high school get together full of drama. So instead I made the choice to turn 25 in style, spending last weekend in Seattle, visiting Snow and catching up with college friends. Last night I organized a birthday dinner with some old friends who I never get to see and I leave to visit my cousin in Denver tomorrow. It is definitely an overwhelming week, but if not on your birthday when else do you do the things you want?
So thank you world, for giving me a beautiful reason to look forward to my birthday. My twin is an easy reminder that I’ll always have someone to celebrate with, that getting older will always be an accomplishment and that birthdays are a great excuse to do the things you’ve always wanted. I’m so glad to know her. Love you Cindy.