10 Things I Need to Stop Doing (and Maybe You Do Too)

It’s weird: I came to graduate school because I want to write, but I find it virtually impossible to find a little time to write.  And then I complain about always being busy.  And then I get so unhappy and restless and resentful toward this decision I made to go to graduate school.  And then I just wish someone would give me all the answers and I didn’t have to do any work and I could just start out making $500,000 a year after someone accidentally discovered something brilliant I wrote on some dumb blog that I started with the intention to keep up with, but can’t find the time.  Repeat cycle of complaining and nagging and feeling sorry for myself, etc.  And then after reflecting on all these inner thoughts, I wanted to smack myself and say, “you’re doing it all wrong.”

In honor of realizing how vapid and sometimes self-absorbed I can be, and being the source of my own problems and never the solution, I give you:

10 Things I Need to Stop Doing (and Maybe You Do Too)

10.      Not partaking in me-time

Spreading myself too thin has been a tactic of mine ever since middle school.  It is my way to cram everything I want to do into a certain frame of time, even if it means doing things half-assedly, as I tend to do most of the time. I just needed to constantly busy myself to feel fulfilled.  I also hate saying no to people.  Especially people who want to do fun things.  Like shopping or drinking or just hanging out and watching Netflix while we abandon any sense of what we should actually be doing.  The extravert in me screams, NEED SOCIAL INTERACTION. NOW. While the rational side of me (which rarely rears it’s reasonable head) knows that I need to slow down, say no for once, and take a little time to unwind myself.  Sure, living life fast-paced is exciting and exhilarating, and makes you feel alive, but sometimes it’s nice to pull away and just chill out for a bit.  I need to learn to say yes to myself before I keep saying yes to everyone else.  So go away and don’t tempt me, guys.  Stop asking me do to cool stuff with you. 

9.      Neglecting to see the bright side

I tend to be a complainer.  Surprise.  If you haven’t gathered that after 10 minutes of knowing me, then you’ve probably got the wrong Jessica.  Or I might be drunk.  I tend to be carefree and generally jolly in that state.  I am so fucking annoying.  If I could record myself during the day, and then play it back without knowing it was me speaking, I’d be like, LOL who’s this naggy bitch?!  Then someone would tell me that it was me, and I’d be like damn, I suck. Part of this is because I always look at the negative side of things.  A prime example is my job as a tutor.  It’s always, oh, I have to go into work and tutor kids who probably won’t even understand what I’m telling them? What a drag.  Instead of, oh, I have the opportunity to help these students have a better knowledge of English while also aiding them with basic grammatical structure and writing style?  FUCKING SWEET, THIS JOB IS THE TITS.  And in all honestly, it’s an incredible job.  I get paid to help students do what I love: write.  I get to influence their writing, and they take little pieces of my influence and weave them into their thoughts and type them on their papers and get a higher grade because of something I helped them with.  Who would complain about that?  An asshole, that’s who.  Time to start looking at the positives and seeing things as wicked opportunities, not weighty obligations.

 8.      Wasting money on things that I don’t need

It’s a paradox: this is the poorest I’ve ever been, yet I spend more than I ever had.  What’s the science behind that?  I’m sure there’s some psychological principle named after some German guy that refers to the phenomenon I’m talking about.  I. Can’t. Stop. Spending.  It’s bad.  If I forget to make coffee one morning, I don’t have to worry, because there are approximately 56,984 Dunkin Donuts in Boston. If I forget to make lunch, which I attest that I rarely have time for, which I’m sure I would if I stopped Facebooking and Buzzfeeding so damn much, I can always stop at City Convenience and get some soup.  While I’m in line there, I’ll also see stuff like notebooks, candy bars, tampons, another pair of gloves, an extra umbrella, motor oil that I decide that I NEED to have.  I also notoriously frequent the fine dining establishments of Scoozi, Yardhouse, and Bertucci’s, wherein I promise myself, okay, this is the last time I’ll eat out this week, and I’ll only have ONE more overpriced drink, and end up drunk and on the wrong train after splitting a pitcher, while I’m texting a friend scheduling dinner for the next night.  I need to start applying the whole, less is more principle here.  The less money I have, the more I need to work on not blowing it on cheap thrills.

7.      Taking the train so often

I live 1.4 miles away from school.  I live 1.2 miles away from my best friend.  And all of my immediate needs like a grocery store, a post office, a pharmacy and a liquor store are all in walking distance from my apartment.  Yet I take the train or the bus everywhere.  And all of the scenery blurs together, and all the little shops and undiscovered niches are disregarded as I’m simply concerned with getting from A to B.  The best commute I’ve had to school thus far is the day I walked.  I saw everything.  From a park that I never knew existed to a patch of vomit on the sidewalk.  Who wants to ride public transit during rush hour, anyway?  There’s always that woman who spills her coffee on someone, that guys who nonchalantly farts then exits at the next stop, and that music school kid who hits you with his cello case every time the train slows down.  I think I’d appreciate my surroundings more if I took time to get acquainted with them.

6.      Putting myself down

Self-deprecation can be pretty funny, don’t get me wrong, especially when it’s something so true to human nature that it hurts, but there’s a distinct difference between a good, hearty self-criticizing jab and just being so plain hateful to yourself that people are uncomfortable.  Thankfully, I reserve putting myself down for when I’m alone, usually while I immerse myself in a whole pint of ice cream and eat an entire pizza, while I neglect to do any work and cry my make up all over my face, then put myself down for being a lonely, fat, unmotivated, ugly crier.  Oh, what a wicked web I weave.  I don’t know what it is about being a woman, but I feel like it’s engrained in me to never be allowed to be fully satisfied with myself.  That’s wrong, y’all. I have done incredible things—things I should be proud of, things that signify a personal goal I’ve met, or things that just make me think, woah, I did that? Everyone has those accomplishments.  It’s putting them before the put downs that make life a little sweeter.*

*Here, I originally wrote, “oh, God, that’s disgusting, why am I being such a sap,” but then realized I’m not allowed to put myself down anymore. Baby steps.

5.      Comparing myself

Let’s take a little self-assessment here.  How many times in the past week have I said or thought any of the following: “she’s so much prettier,” “she’s so much skinnier,” “she’s so much funnier,” “she’s so much smarter,” “she’s so much (INSERT ANY SUPERLATIVE HERE).”  I swear, most of the time, I’m most own worst enemy simply because I waste my time wishing I were more like someone else.  Why?  Why can’t I just accept how awesome I am on my own personal scale?  Comparatively, how do I add up to who I was yesterday?  A year ago? Four years ago (Lord, don’t make me go back there…)?Additionally, who gives a fuck if someone is skinnier or prettier?  Does that amount to worth in the grand scheme of things?  Someone may have her shit together more than I do, but maybe she’s not as creative or open-minded or spontaneous or animated or excitable as I am.  All things being relative, good traits and bad traits should all be weighted the same and viewed through different lenses.  One man’s disorganized, scattered, quirky, emotional, candid, and sharply witty trash may be another man’s treasure.

4.      Thinking that success comes without hard work

From a young age, we are all taught that we will be successful solely because we are unique and special, and that the Success Fairy will just wave her magic wand, and we’ll all be wiping our asses with 100% silk toilet paper made from authentic Philippine silkworms and eating crepes filled with raspberry sauce and gold while we’re surrounded by all of those who are mere peons to our grandeur and will get no silken comfort and no golden crepes.  First of all, if that description actually appealed to you as the vision of success, go talk to someone.  May I suggest a therapist?  Second, we need to get over this idea that just because we’re “special” and “unique” according to our parents and teachers and guidance counselors who hammered it into us, those are not applicable skills you can put on a resume.  Unless you’re applying for some job at a vegan supermarket, then by all means, forge ahead.  Hard work is directly correlated with success, and the idea that real goals come easily is almost as dumb of an idea as the existence of a Success Fairy.  I know this is something I struggle with, being an I-want-it-now, no-patience-for-the-pay-off kind of gal, but realizing that giving up and halting the hard work will only halt the gain is the first step.

3.      Complaining about graduate school

Okay, I know, this is going to be a challenge.  Almost everything that comes out of my mouth, usually via Facebook status, is “insert awful rant laden with profanities about how much I hate graduate school and how no one should ever go because it makes you haggard and depressed and fat.”  Yes, I know, I go way over my quota of bitchy, whiny, feel-sorry-for-me-because-grad-school-is-hard Facebook statuses.  At least I’m not blowing up your feed with “lOoK @ mUh eNGaGeMENt RiiiNg! cAn’T wAIT to MuRry muH BoO0o0oOo0O” or obnoxious baby pictures with captions like, “little Henry tooted on Mommy today!”  I’m going to make a conscious effort to stop.  I mean, honestly Jessica (scolding myself in third person makes me take myself more seriously), it was your choice to attend graduate school, and a pretty badass choice at that.  Do you even realize how many wee babes dream of going to graduate school but can’t, due to poor grades, lack of funds, and other factors?  Count your blessings, hun.  Oh, you have student loans? Boo hoo. You are going to graduate with a diploma from the 8^th ranked college of communication in this great nation with your name on it that signifies to employers that you had what it takes to get through a grueling curriculum and come out virtually unscathed (maybe just with bigger bags under your eyes and a few extra pounds).  And you’re going to complain about that?  Some people don’t have shoes, Jessica.  Stop your bitching.

2.      Saying I don’t have time

Go out to dinner? Sorry, I don’t have the time. Watch a movie? I don’t have the time. Gym?  I don’t have time. Make breakfast? Don’t have time. Shower? No time. Brush my teeth? No.  From this, you can deduce that I have become an anti-social fat slob who needs a breath mint.  Which is what I feel like 95% of the time (the other 5%, I don’t have time to feel anything).  I’m sure if I actually sat down and mapped out my week, I WOULD have time.  My issue: I won’t MAKE time to actually sit down and gerrymander my time accordingly to appease all parties involved (the constituents of Sanity usually get short-changed).  I know that there is enough time for school, work, homework, and socializing.  I’m not the first scatterbrain to attend graduate school and hold two jobs and a social life.  Maybe if I stopped running around like I’m trying to fit my head through a turtleneck hole (just visualize the struggle for a second), I could appropriate hefty amounts of time to places that are lacking (like homework and personal hygiene, usually).  If I made time to write this, I’m positive I have time for things of higher importance.

1.      Taking the smallest, seemingly insignificant moments for granted

I am constantly going at 100 miles per hour (as my Myers-Briggs assessment recently confirmed), and I rarely stop to slow down and take in what’s actually going on around me.  Scratch that—I never stop and slow down to take in what’s going on around me.  Why? Refer back to #2.  What’s everything worth if I don’t make the time to see it for what it is?  Whether it’s a small hand squeeze from a main squeeze or the best hug from a best friend, it matters.  Every tiny thing matters.  Those 9 extra minutes I get when I hit the snooze button (I still don’t understand why Apple programs iPhone snooze to a preset of 9 minutes, but hey, it’s better than the typical 5, so I ain’t mad at it) are 9 extra minutes that I should be thankful for.  And those 5-15 minutes I spend waiting for the train (yes, 5-15, the green line is that unreliable) are 5-15 extra minutes that I get to be inside my own head and think of all the wonderful things that I can do with my day.  Where do you think I had the idea to come up with this blog?  It’s the little things.

How to Be an Adult (or at Least Fake It Really Well)

 

Yes, I realize this is long overdue, and I’m sorry.  But uprooting your entire life and moving 17 hours away from home, to a city where you’re living alone with your small dog that won’t let you sleep for more than 3 hours a night and constantly leaves little surprises underneath your futon when you’re not looking, all for the purpose to attend a prestigious grad school program that you have no idea how you’re going to pay off in 10 years kind of wears on a girl, ya know?

So to answer all of your questions and reply to all of the texts I’ve gotten that I’ve been too overwhelmed to respond to, which led to me forgetting about them completely (sorry if that makes me an asshole), here we go:

Yes, I love Boston. 
Yes, my apartment is great, yet very unfinished—there’s a roofdeck on my building where I frequently escape to drink wine and contemplate what the hell I’m doing; that’s probably what I’m doing instead of responding to your texts about my apartment. 
Yes, I love my classes; especially my sitcom writing class. 
Yes, my professors are great. 
Yes, people comment on my southern accent and yes, I still firmly protest that I have an accent.
Yes, I’ve gotten lost. 
No, I haven’t gotten mugged. 
No, I haven’t met Mark Wahlberg or Ben Affleck or Matt Damon, but I did watch The Departed for the first time last week.
And no, (this one is for my mom), you cannot open a branch of your office in Boston to be closer to me.  Sorry.  I’ll be home for Christmas.

Since coming to Boston, I’ve cried a few times, laughed plenty, gotten on the wrong train only once, and have consumed more “Welcome to Boston!” drinks than my liver and my exponentially tighter jeans can handle.  The adjustment has been a little difficult, especially when I have to alter the sanctity of the pronunciation of my hometown to give anyone the slightest idea of where I’m from (it is LOO-uh-vul.  Not LOO-ee-ville. Not LOO-is-ville.  Not whatever the hell else you call it. Embrace the muted vowels; LOO-uh-vul), and especially when I sound dreadfully out of place when I say “wicked,” or anything with an R in it.

And I’ve finally put on my big girl pants (when I wear pants; do you even know how liberating it is to live alone and wake up knowing that no one is privy to Victoria’s secret except you?) and learned a few lessons (some the hard way) on how to function as a struggling graduate student, ripped away from suburban comfort and dropped into the fast paced world that takes no prisoners.  The transition into adulthood isn’t formulaic, but I’ve tried my damnedest to prescribe the right steps to get me there, and maybe imparting them to you may save some poor soul who, like me, still hasn’t gotten her shit together.

Be On Time.
Probably the most important rule of being an adult.  If you have an obligation, whether it’s a really dry Powerpoint lecture on the history of radio, an appointment with a helpless undergrad who doesn’t know the difference between a thesis sentence and hoagie, or even just a first date that you think is going to be super awkward but turns out to be more than you ever expected; Be. On. Time.  I leave my apartment at least an hour before I need to be anywhere.  Yes, I know this is a little anal retentive, but if you know Boston, you know the green line is as predictable as the weather in the Midwest.  Being on time makes people take you seriously and gives the appearance that you’re dependable and organized (even if you’re far from it).  It also makes people want to hang out with you more.  No one likes to be held up on Ladies’ Night, due to that one friend who is constantly running behind (you all know who you are…). When it comes down to it, would you rather be known as That Girl Who Is Always Obnoxiously Early or That Tardy Fuck.  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Dress The Part (day edition).
There is a distinct difference I’ve noticed between undergraduate students and graduate students.  Graduate students look like they knew they had to go out in public.  Undergraduate students look like someone kidnapped them in their sleep and dropped them off on Commonwealth Ave.  I’ll admit, I had my fair share of days when I refused to brush my teeth or put on a bra to go to class.  I’m at fault there.  My bad.  But now that I’m forced to leave the confines of a college campus and trot around a major city to get to class and actually make an impression on my professors so hopefully they’ll hook me up with a sweetass job when I graduate, there is no time for morning breath or boobs bouncing out of place.  And overall it creates a sense of pride about how you look.  Believe me; I’ve been tempted to take selfies more than ever now that I actually put effort into how I look every day (don’t worry, I refrain. Most of the time.)  If you look halfway decent, people will give you a little more respect than they would if you were in your UK Mom sweatshirt and a pair of inside out boxer shorts.

Dress The Part (night edition).
I am 22 years old.  I no longer shop in the juniors section for a reason.  That reason being that I wouldn’t be caught dead in a neon crop top or shorts that show off my colon.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to go out on weekends and hang out at bars until all hours of the night and get drinks (I don’t think that’s a huge surprise to anyone), but there’s no way I’m going to be that classless broad on the dance floor or sitting at the bar who leaves little to the imagination.  You don’t have to go out looking like a 16 year old with chlamydia to look good (I’m sure some people would beg to differ, but clearly that’s not my target audience here).  Clean it up and don’t look like a slut (by all means, if you’re a slut, go for it, own it, work it, I don’t know your life, but just don’t show it), because it’s hard to take you seriously if a complete stranger can tell that you have a dimple on your left asscheek and a birthmark right above your nipple. 

Take Responsibility.
I am the queen of excuses.  I love to blame other people for everything.  Because obviously, nothing is ever my fault.  But what I’ve slowly been learning since graduate school started is that usually, most things are my fault.  It is no longer my printer’s fault that I didn’t turn in an assignment.  It is no longer my alarm clock’s fault that it set itself to the wrong time.  It is no longer Starbucks’ fault that the line was so long that it made me late.  And it is no longer every single one of my friends’ faults for being so goddamn interesting that I don’t have time to get any of my work done.  Just the other day, I mixed up some dates and didn’t show up for an entire shift of work.  Was it my supervisor’s fault for not e-mailing me to remind me?  No.  It was mine because I’m incapable of being organized enough to write down anything correctly in my planner.  Step up, own your mistakes, and learn from them.  And don’t blame me that you’re wasting time reading this blog post when you should be doing work.  Caught you there, didn’t I?

Smell Nice.
A small, yet very crucial point of being an adult.  My advice: invest in a nice perfume.  And no, that doesn’t mean keep wearing that cheap, alcoholic sugar water you bought in 7^th grade from PacSun.  When you have your own “scent,” you become recognizable and memorable.  And it also covers up all those pheromones and other weird shit your body involuntarily produces (hey, we’re all human).  I have people who know when I’m around because of the perfume I wear daily (which could be potentially precarious if I’m trying to avoid someone or become the target of a stalker/serial killer), and it’s always nice to know that you’ve branded yourself in some positive way.  After re-reading this paragraph, it seems really stupid.  But I’m going to keep it because I like to let everyone know that I smell nice, and want to urge everyone else to smell nice, because the world would probably be a much better place.

Read Up.
‘Ignorance is bliss’ doesn’t really apply anymore.  Sure, when you were 17 and didn’t know the first thing about your government or social graces or corporate etiquette, it may have been acceptable, maybe even endearing; “oh, look at her, how cute, she thinks socialism is about how many friends you have.”But in the real world, that shit doesn’t fly.  Pick up a newspaper. Read something.  Make your brain work.  When someone asks you about a current event or a movie or a book or even your opinion about something so inane and remedial like Miley Cyrus’ VMA disaster, you shouldn’t have to say, “oh, well, I don’t know how I feel about that,” as an excuse for not having the slightest clue what to say.  Make yourself knowledgeable and in turn, make yourself marketable.  The more you know, the more people want to know about you and the more people value your opinion.  Unless you’re Miley Cyrus.  Then the inverse is true. 

Shut Up.
Remember that phase when you thought everything was about you?  When you would tell awesome stories about your awesome life and how awesome your breakfast was and how awesome your outfit was and how not awesome that girl in your philosophy class was and how not awesome it was when she talked in class because she never had anything awesome to say because it wasn’t as awesome as what you wanted to say, and how awesome it was to hear the sound of your own voice until it became sickening?  That phase is over.  Shut your mouth and start listening.  This has maybe been one of the hardest things for me, because I naturally tend to be a longwinded storyteller and naturally think that everything I have to say is the most revolutionary thing ever, like, “yesterday, I ate this really good burrito.”  People have stories.  Stories I can learn from, if I only take the time to shut up and listen instead of centering things on myself.  It’s about learning from others and realizing that maybe there are some pretty awesome people with some pretty awesome stories that don’t involve you and your now, only semi-awesome life.

Cry.
It’s okay to fall apart every once in a while.  Catharsis, I think is an appropriate word.  When you realize that you’ve just moved into your own place, and your shit is all over the floor because your classes have been so busy that there’s no time to tidy, and your suitcase isn’t even unpacked, because you’re still trying to assemble a dresser by yourself, because you refused your parents’ help when they were still in town, and you almost give your dog that you have grown to love with entire heart away because you feel that you’re physically and emotionally incapable of giving her the attention she needs, and you’re sweating through your clothes because your apartment doesn’t have central air and Boston is experience some weird heat wave conveniently as you're moving in, and your TV doesn’t work because you forgot the remote at home, and your sink leaks and your toilet doesn’t flush, and all you can bear to do is sit on the floor in your underwear and cry and cry and cry and dwell on the fact that no one is making you do this, and that you made this decision and you’re the only one who can make it better.  Crying is probably one of the most adult things you can do.  When you realize that you’re not invincible and you understand exactly where you’re breaking point is and that you’ve finally reached it, that’s when you are the strongest.

Breathe.
Take it all in.  This is what becoming an adult feels like.  It’s hard as hell, especially when you don’t know where to begin.  Take a breath, and realize you’re not alone.  The first week I was here, I stood on the platform at Kenmore station.  I boarded the first train that came, which—surprise—wasn’t the train I needed to take.  Of course I panicked.  I’m in this new city and I’m on a train headed to who knows where and my phone is about to die and I have no idea how to make it back to my apartment.  I’m going to die.  I am going to die on the street because the stress is too much to bear.  I will wander around, looking lost and lonely and someone will find me and take me home and I will never see my family again.  I got off at the next stop, and Googled my apartment right before my phone shut off.  I had a slight idea of where I was going, but I wasn’t quite sure.  I knew that I would make it back to my apartment somehow, as I confidently stepped off the train and looked like I knew exactly what I was doing.  And that’s when I realized you don’t have to know where you’re going to walk with purpose.

You Can't Be In Love

                I sat in the back of Dawn Deweese’s (I’m sure she’d feel more revered if I called her Ms. Deweese, as I did with all my high school teachers, that is, until I graduated and then took the liberty of calling them all by their first names, whether they approved or not) class as she drew a pyramid on the board—I had already had numerous health classes throughout grade school; I was not about to relearn the food groups.  The class was titled “Effective Skills,” and it was a required course for all freshmen.  With a name like that, you would think lessons would consist of Tiring Changing 101 and How To Land A Job Even If You’re Not Qualified.  But at an all-girl, Catholic school, effective skills meant something deeper than abilities plugged into a formula only to be applied into physical trade skills.  Effective skills meant facing the part of life that is often the hardest to understand and maintain: you.

                The pyramid consisted of 5 layers, from the bottom up; physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—these were the needs for the ultimate human condition.  I tugged at the sleeves of my gray, wool sweater and fidgeted with the hem of my maroon and white plaid skirt.  This is stupid, I thought, I have everything I need.  Why do I have to take a class that tells what I need? Who the hell does Abraham Maslow think he is, just butting into my life and telling me how to be human?   We were asked to draw a pyramid, and assess where we believed to be.  Of course, as an overconfident, headstrong 14 year old girl who was scared away by any sort of introspection, without even thinking, I circled the pinnacle of the pyramid with my Electric Lime marker (at an all-girl high school, the majority of work is done in bold, neon colors.  Or bubble letters).  Now, as an overconfident, headstrong 22 year old who fondly uses a little bit of navel-gazing to confront the question, what the fuck were you thinking?, in retrospect, this may have been the class that I needed the most—you know, that saying, “blessing in disguise.”  But I wouldn’t realize it until much later.

Physiological: breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion.

                In Catholic school teaching, I’m almost positive the ‘sex’ part was left out of this bottom rung (I would learn all about abstinence and the Catholic doctrine surrounding sex during my sophomore year in Catholic Moral Teaching—another required course).

                I always knew I was lucky when it came to physiological needs.  I feel like anyone who has parents who can scrape up the funds to not only send one, but three girls to private school from K-12 has all of their needs pretty much met.  My parents worked their asses off to make sure their children could be educated in Catholic schools, because that’s how they wanted us to be raised, regardless of if it was monetarily feasible.  Some nights, my mother wouldn’t get home until 9pm, because she’d be busy building her new business where she’d eventually become COO, and my dad was left to fend for himself. One of my earliest memories is crying in the bathtub when I was about 4, because my mom wasn’t home in time to give me my bath, which she always did before I went to bed.  My dad tried his best, as he spoke in a falsetto to make me laugh and imitate my mom as he took over her nightly duties.  He was a shoddy replacement, but hey, what can a guy do?  I always had food on the table; mainly due to my mom’s badass cooking skills, which I have yet to obtain (and probably won’t), and I always had homeostasis by way of the correct balance of mother and father figure constantly shaping who I became.  Come October, my parents will celebrate their 35^th wedding anniversary, and I realize how lucky I am to say that my parents are still together, despite the times my dad tells my mom she needs to chill out and despite the times my mom calls my dad a dickhead for being insensitive (I’m almost positive she got that word from me, but I don’t want to take too much credit).

Safety: body, employment, resources, morality, family, health, property

                I ran around the cul-de-sac barefoot until my dad flipped on the porch light.  Apart from a few scrapes, a rusty nail to the foot followed by a trip to the immediate care center for a tetanus shot, and some calluses that will forever haunt me and anyone who will ever give me a pedicure, I never doubted that I was safe.  I’m sure my parents would’ve loved to have kept me outside all night, and I’m sure I could have entertained myself (I suffered from youngest child syndrome; my sisters wouldn’t hang out with me, so I frequently resorted to talking to myself or inanimate objects—something that I openly admit has been carried into my adult life as well), but I had a place to call home at the end of the night, despite my protests of, “oh, come on, just ONE MORE kickball game!”  I knew that I was safe. And my family was safe. And that all of my prized possessions, like the Bonne Bell chapstick collection I kept in the top drawer of my nightstand and the trunk of Polly Pockets in the basement, were safe.  I got a few wallops to the ass over the years that were most likely deserved, a broken wrist which was inflicted by my own stupidity and amateur ability to ride an ATV, and went through a tonsillectomy like a champ after missing 16 days of kindergarten due to strep throat, but nothing ever threatened my physical security (unless you count the fist fight that I almost got into at a Red Hot Chili Pepper’s concert, but that’s another story for another time).

Love: friendship, love, family, affection, belonging

                The first time I said, “I love you,” to someone other than my mom or dad or immediate family members and friends, I was 15 years old.

                I’ll pause for a minute and let you laugh.  Don’t worry, I’d do the same thing if I just read something like that.

                If I take a minute to look back on who I was when I was 15 years old, it brings me to one of those, what the fuck were you thinking? moments.  This is where my pyramid would start to fall apart eventually, despite my lime green indicator that I had made it to the top.  Fifteen.  There is nothing stable about a 15 year-old.  You get pissed off if your parents buy the wrong cereal, and then when they go back to return the Cocoa Pebbles and get Cocoa Puffs like you had asked, you decide that cereal isn’t your thing anymore and you want only hormone-free eggs for breakfast, because you’re trying this new eat-everything-natural-because-that-girl-with-the-henna-tattoo-in-your-English-class-seems-cool-and-she-does-it diet.  Fifteen is an age for transparency and vapidity and changing who you are every time the wind picks up.  How can you love someone if you don’t even know who you are?

                When I first dropped the L bomb, I was convinced that I meant it.  And every single time that followed.  To fix a fight.  I love you.  To end the night.  I love you.  Just to fill the air with words. I love you.  But the sad part was, I couldn’t even look at myself and say I love you, because I was so wrapped up in trying to be and not just being.  I felt the need to change myself to make someone fall in love with me, constantly morphing in order to get a response.  I wanted love, and goddamnit, I would have it, even if I had to blindfold it, wrap it in burlap and stuff it in my trunk.  With juvenile love rooted in whether or not he called when he said he would, checking to see who he’s talking to on AIM (I’m telling y’all, it was back in those days; I was THAT young and idiotic), and starting fights as tests just to see if he really cared and wanted to fight for the relationship, I kept digging a hole and attempting to fill it back up with I love yous.

                My friends fucking hated me.  And accused me of “not being myself,” whatever the hell that meant, because who were they to tell me who “myself,” was, right?  In all honesty, I had no idea who to tell myself to be, either.  Depending on the day of the week, I’d pick something new.  Some days I liked who I was, and some days I didn’t, and most of the time, it was based on whether or not he liked who I was that day.  Like marking a fucking calendar every day; he loves me, he loves me not.  It was my own fault, though.  I can’t put blame on other people that I was too stubborn to be patient and let myself naturally develop into who I am. I wanted to waste my I love yous on someone else instead of me.

Esteem: confidence, self-esteem, achievements, respect of/by others

                It took a while to figure out who I was.  And it didn’t happen all at once.  I didn’t just wake up and think, huh, alright, cool, I’m finally me.  Even though I’d like to wake up to that every morning (and maybe some pancakes along with it), it’s a process, which I didn’t realize until recently.  As inconvenient as it sounds, I think it may have been helpful to hate myself before learning to love myself.  Hate may be a strong word.  Let’s just say, if I met me and spent an afternoon with myself, I would’ve thought, this girl is off her meds.  What I slowly started to put together was that you can’t be in love unless you’re in love with yourself first.  And in love with your life and all that entails.  How can someone possibly give herself to someone else if she hasn’t even been received by herself (there’s some sort of really awful sex pun in there, but just go with it, you know what I mean)? It’s hard to grasp that I only get to be me once.  And do I want to die as the crotchety ol’ bitch who never liked herself or anyone else except her animals and the hanging plants inside her patio home in Arizona?  Fuck. That.  Every day I like myself a little bit more (except when I have hangovers or am on my period. Hey, I’m only human), and if I keep confidence and respect in myself, others will put it in me as well (okay, another really bad sex pun, sorry, I’m not trying to make this saucy, it’s just happening).

Self-actualization: morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts

                I don’t mean to dwell on the past, and I don’t mean to call anyone out.  Which I’m sure I’ve done and will never hear the end of it.  I only do this to document a passage that most people have to go through before they figure all this life shit out.  I’m currently approaching the final level of Maslow’s Hierarchy, and you know, maybe he does know a little something about what I need.  It’s not easy for me to admit this, but I was wrong.  That may be the only time you see me type that.  Ever.  But I’ve accepted everything I am at this point.  All the good and bad and weird and ridiculous and quirky and disgusting and endearing.  And I don’t have the time to waste not loving every bit of it.       

                If I could go back in time, I would yank that Electric Lime marker out of my hand and place it back into my glittery purple Spacemaker.  I would grab myself by the shoulders and have no qualms with shaking the shit out of 14 year-old me.  I would also tell myself to not date anyone until I’m at least 20, because everyone until then are poor excuses for anything resembling “boyfriend material,” so don’t waste an ounce of love that I could spend on myself.  I would assure myself that I grow up to be fine—even a little badass—and not to fuck it up.  But most importantly, I would pull out that Electric Lime marker again and in huge bubble letters across the front of my planner (which was covered with pictures of Gerard Way; it was a really weird phase for me, I prefer not to answer any questions about it), I would write,

YOU CAN’T BE IN LOVE UNLESS YOU LOVE YOURSELF FIRST.

               

A (really) scattered note on friends

          In 1996, I sat across from Madison Daub in Ms. Ritchie’s morning kindergarten class.  My mom had ironed my brown and white plaid jumper that morning, just as she did for my sisters each year on the first day of school.  I had my new Esmeralda backpack (The Hunchback of Notre Dame had come out that summer, and I became morbidly obsessed with being a gypsy; I made numerous tambourines with bags of beans and two paper plates taped together, and tied scarves around my waist as I shimmied to the dinner table) and a pack of fresh Crayolas—the 64 pack, because 12 and 24 were for chumps.  As the end of the first day of class neared, I reflected deeply on the past 3 and a half hours spent coloring my nametag, filling out my home information (I had trouble with my Es and 3s, so thank god they’re on the same phone key, and as for my name, well, J3ssica would do for now) and awkwardly making my first impression on kids I would spend the next 9 years with.  We were about to line up at the door when I looked at Madison, who I hadn’t said a word to all day, but because of proximity, I felt it was only logical to ask; “will you be my best friend?”

------

I’ve been through a few best friends since Madison Daub, and I’ve learned that while I would love for the words, “will you be my best friend,” to be a binding contract to ensure that each party perform all duties and responsibilities of a best friend, and all those failing to adhere to the Rule Book of Best Friends would be smote by the Friend Gods and put on a probationary period wherein they cannot pursue any new friendships and can definitely not be included on any trips to get coffee and/or froyo, the process is a bit more complicated.

I have always had a theory about friends:

“Can you do me a favor?”

I like to consider myself the queen of can-you-do-me-a-favor.  I should probably have a weekly quota.  I always find myself forgetting something or waiting until the last minute, which usually means waiting until it’s too late, in my case.  It’s something I’ve tried working on, but now I’ve just accepted it as an annoying quirk that I try to play off as endearing (I’ve learned this can work if I usually include a smiley face after everything I say).  

I typically gauge the seriousness of my friendships based on that question.  The friends that answer, “what do you need? I’ll see what I can do,” may be worth it.  But the friends who answer, “yeah, girl.  Wait—do I have to put pants on?” are the ones you cling to.

It seems like an idiotic way to evaluate the company you surround yourself with, but let me explain:  the deepest friendships are those punctuated with the mutual and unadulterated desire to give, no matter the circumstances—even if they are unknown.  And through the years that I’ve been socially cognizant, I’ve had to learn the hard way that these type of friends don’t come easily.  But I’ve also stumbled upon a handful of people who would drop everything and put on pants if I’m ever in need.  No romantic relationship could ever put a dent in the solid friendships I have now, and I’ll be the first to say, I’m down to ride ‘til I die for my bad bitches.

------

                This may seem like unsolicited advice, but I’ve been doing some soul-searching lately (that’s what people call it, right? Soul-searching? When you find out all this deep stuff about yourself that only surfaces during a transitional or traumatic period, oh, like say, I don’t know, uprooting your life and moving 16 hours away from your family and establishing yourself in a new city where you’ll be living alone and drowning in student loans), and I’ve come to understand that I would fight for friendships like the ones I have, and this is why:

Honesty. Every relationship needs it.  Whether it’s brutal honesty, or fessing up to something you’ve done, mutual honesty is a must.  You don’t like this new guy your girl starts seeing? Tell her.   If your girl has food in her teeth, pick it out.  Offer some floss.  That’s what friends are for.  Maybe white isn’t her color.  Don’t you dare let her go out looking like a polar bear.  Friends talk openly about EVERYTHING.  Be there to revel in the fact that you are sharing the most visceral part of life with someone: the honest goddamn truth.

Reliability.  Friends are there in a time of need.  They drive in from an hour away to bring you wine and good company when some asshole breaks your heart.  They pick you up when your piece of shit car breaks down and you’re left cursing on the shoulder of I-65.  You tell a friend you’ll be there for her big show? You show up 20 minutes early and sit in the front row.  With a bouquet of fucking flowers.  That’s a badass friend.

Camaraderie.  You just like being around each other.  You could be sitting at a crowded bar or miserably sweating your asses off at the gym at that spin class you both regret signing up for or sharing a blanket and Ben & Jerry’s while you cry over every Ryan Reynolds movie ever made, and it’s still the highlight of your week.  Phone calls turn into hour-long gossip sessions wherein you discuss everything from how much you hate your job to how much you love your new Michael Kors bag that you worked overtime at that god-awful job to scrounge up the funds for.

Give and take.  A friendship is an exchange, not a transaction. It’s not one-sided, and most of the time, it’s selfless.  The constant need to keep giving, not asking anything in return, but knowing damn well that your back is covered.  Listening and offering advice.  Knowing when to talk and when to shut up (believe me, this one has been hard for me to master).  It’s sending stupid cards for no reason, and unsolicitedly complimenting her new profile picture that makes her boobs look like they could rival ScarJo’s and liking all of her Instagrams, even if every single one is of her on the toilet or of her dog (whoops….).

Shameless tomfoolery.  You know you’ve found good friends when you can’t keep yourself out of trouble.  Like crashing a college party at a bar that clearly you were not invited to, or lying about your birthday to get free drinks.  Fulfilling friendships are thrilling, because there’s a level of trust in knowing that if you fuck up, you’re never alone.  You’re in this shit together, so you may as well live it up.

Compassion and understanding.  You feel what your friends feel.  Excitement for a new job or a raise.  Cautious and protective when pursuing a new relationship.  Sadness when things don’t work out the way we wanted them to.  You cry with them and laugh with them, and say the same thing at the same time so often that it’s scary.  You understand the subtleties of a look and speak without words; like the “get this creep away from me” glare, or “what the fuck is she wearing” gaze.

Love.  This by far is what I’ve learned holds friendships together.  It is unconditional.  There is no mileage, no lapse of time, and no life-altering event that can change this.  You could talk every day, or once a week, but everything you have is still there.  You know and understand all the reasons why you’re friends, and you’re thankful every day. 

------

                I'm going to be asking for favors for the rest of my life.  For all my friends out there: get ready to put your pants on and help a sister out.

A Bit Reminiscent

          Just taking a little stroll down memory lane (My Documents) and found this little gem I wrote after all the stress of applying to graduate school and not knowing what the hell I wanted to do with my life.  Hopefully it resonates.

 

QUANTITATIVE REASONING: 35 MINUTES

            You have reached the quantitative reasoning section of the GRE.  Congratulations.  You may not look back at previous tests once this portion has started, so too fucking bad if you’re still stuck on the question about the contrasting arguments in the passage about the Navajo Indian remains found in New Mexico, on which you just spent 7 minutes ruminating, and too fucking bad if you missed the definition of ‘ruminating.’ In this portion of the exam, we will ask questions that involve letters, numbers, pictures, functions, formulas and charts, probably some of which you have never seen, and we will give you an absurdly limited amount of time to finish them.  We have designed quantitative reasoning to allow left-brained, logic-zealots to look like glistening thoroughbreds in the race to graduate school, grabbing the attention of Ivy League suitors who are willing to bet on the favorites.  For those of you who are right-brained and have a nauseous aversion to logic and reasoning and would rather spend hours with charcoal and easel or pen and paper or camera and film, this section will parade your weaknesses like a Pekingese in the Preakness.  And don’t get your hopes up that everything will ‘just click’ when you see the test material.  This is not Good Will Hunting.  And you are not Matt Damon.

            There are a total of 20 questions and 35 minutes for this portion of the test.  Don’t try to calculate how to pace yourself now; we know it’ll take all the energy you can muster to figure out the conundrums beyond this page.  We hope that 500-something page book you bought over the summer works to your advantage, even if you completed (and by completed, we mean skimmed) 4 out of 9 of the practice sections and retained none of the lessons that the book offered.  Surely, you remember some material from high school math classes, because despite your groans of, “I will never use this is real life,” your teachers hammered it into you how important trigonometry and pre-calculus become in your daily life, and you believed them, because who ever questions a high school math teacher?  We understand that it was your choice to slack on GRE prep, because you were so busy chasing after three children, because if you’re going to attend graduate school, you must have some way to pay for it, preferably a full-time job that involves no paper trail.  Your choices were drug cartel or summer nanny.  You chose wisely and we applaud your judgment, but we regret to inform you that you will not receive any points for that on the GRE.  Please remain seated for the duration of the test and keep fidgeting to a minimum.  Our monitors really don’t want to come out from behind the glass window and tell you to stop adjusting your ponytail and distracting the other test takers.  Relax; this is only one of the make-it or break-it factors for graduate school.

            Pressure is measured by the equation PV = nRT; pressure multiplied by volume equals amount of substance multiplied by the constant (8.3145 J/mol K) multiplied by the temperature.  Meaghan, Kathleen, and Jessica are all sisters.  Meaghan and Kathleen both completed their undergraduate study at a small, private, liberal arts college in Memphis, TN.  Both pursued law degrees at prestigious, top-25-schools-of-law in the nation.  They received the same LSAT score, which ranked them in the 98^th percentile for all LSAT takers that year.  Surely, they would have received near perfect scores on the GRE, as well.  No pressure.  Plump scholarship bundles allowed them to reduce the amount of the loans that they would inevitably pay back when both of them become partners at a firm and are making north of $250,000.  Jessica has never had the desire to be a lawyer or a doctor or anything with a practical function.  Jessica writes for enjoyment.  In the dead of night, she can’t stop the synapses that signal her right hand to pick up a pen or a keyboard or a phone and start writing, typing, recording messages of words that have fallen so deliberately and temporarily into place and beg to be remembered.  She realizes most writers shiver in the winter behind the paper-thin, smoke-stained walls of their “New! Refurbished! Great Neighborhood!” apartments and eat canned ravioli out of calcium-crusted bowls.  No pressure.  Graduate school no longer creeps up as an option, but butts in as a necessity.  If the volume of the disappointed sighs is at its loudest and if the room temperature constantly rises when the graduate school talk slips into conversation, then how many people counting on Jessica does it take for her to fold under the pressure?

Forty-one thousand, three hundred and fifty marbles are put into a bag labeled, 'GRADUATE SCHOOLS.'  As your hand shakes and your bowels clinch, you close your eyes and grab seven marbles, without replacement.  What is the probability that you will scrape by the application deadlines for all seven schools, and what are the odds that each will require a hokey, get-to-know-you essay (most likely, given your past ratio of luck to misfortune, all will have slightly variant prompts so you can't write the same thing seven times), wherein you use the canned, overwritten phrase that always comes to mind when you're asked to write about your future: "Since I can remember, I've always wanted to write"?  Because since you can remember, you’ve been filling up cheap Staples notebooks with wordy passages that flow seamlessly between pages and attempted screen plays you never had time or encouragement to finish and the occasional catharsis with raw, impulsive emotion behind all the “fuck”s and “shit”s and “what the hell am I doing?”s. Television writing became your dream before you even knew what television writing was.  When you were younger, MADtv would be dully playing in the background during dinner, and you’d catch hints of laughter every few moments and think to yourself, that will be my job.  These seven schools represent your chances to emulate what you experienced during your childhood, and perhaps make another starry-eyed six-year-old find her calling.  What fraction of those schools is looking for an acute little girl with exponential talent, but whose total sum is still unknown because she's crass and stubborn like her father, but overly sensitive like her mother, and can't find a way to balance either side of the equation?

            There are 3 points on a map: Boston University, Sacred Heart University, and Brooklyn College, labeled respectively, A, B and C.  If point A is 151.3 miles from point B, and point B is 68.1 miles from point C, when does it stop hurting that all hypothetical points revolve around a relationship that ended in a text, saying "I love you but," and you knew exactly what was coming, so instead of asking for a good 'but,' you just asked for a goodbye?   And as acceptance letters rolled in, you ached to revel in the fact that you're going to graduate school, but instead, you ached as you pictured the geometric shapes of his face, and the 90 degree angles of the walls in the apartment you'd planned to own, and the precise circumference of the coffee table in the living room that bled into the kitchen, but you’d already established that it was okay if your apartment was shitty and small, because all you'd need was one another.  Too much time playing with imaginary numbers, cubing them and squaring them and swearing at them until they would become real, piecing together the factors that would never exist except in an alternate reality.  So much emphasis on i and -i and not enough on the I that you started to become the negative I.  Focusing so much on the unknown variable that you forgot the formula.  And the structure.  And you stood at the board scratching your head wondering why your answers are always wrong.  If you are 21 years old, and put all you had into a six-year relationship, what percentage of your life did you waste living it for someone else?  Including birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s days, and Christmases, how much time and money did you put into a relationship that you and your therapist knew damn well was too one-sided to ever last?  At what point do you move on, despite the proximity of the cities? At what point will you be comfortable admitting that you are okay if your lives no longer intersect, and at what point would a hypothetical glance on the subway not make you fall to pieces?

            Two non-parallel lines with the midpoints of (NOW, -NOW) and (THEN, -THEN) on a plane intersect at a certain point.  If you know that NOW= (THEN + -THEN)(-NOW), then NOW = 0, and this is your clean slate, and the THENs cancel out because they don't matter anymore, and the -NOW multiplied by itself only leaves a positive integer, because in this realm, two negatives make a positive because you're pretty damn positive there's no room for negativity now.  Then, you couldn’t withstand the pressure.  You applied for the wrong reasons.  No one likes a conformist simply going through the motions, no matter how educated she is.  You had your dependent variables lined up as you checked off each one: 1. make something of yourself and make your parents proud; the disappointment in their eyes when you used the excuse “taking a year off” was enough to shame any daughter into racking up more student loans and a supplementary degree, because they knew (and you subconsciously knew, too) “a year off” would turn into “a few years off,” which would turn into “I’m comfortable with my bachelor’s degree.”  2. delay life; you wanted to slow things down and put off responsibility, even if you didn’t know what that responsibility would even be yet.  You were so uncertain of what you even wanted and you just knew it was too soon to pursue it without a graduate school buffer.  Now, you realize looking back that you were painfully attentive to all desires, except your own.  Appeasing the dependent variables, you were unable to establish the independent variable.  The variable that stands on its own.  The variable that is unaffected by outside forces.  The variable that says, this is what I want, and all of you can just sit on it.  You remember your first graduate school interview, and as soon as it was over, you burst into tears and called your mother, because it was at that point that you realized you were doing it for all the right reasons.  You knew who you were, and you knew what you wanted and where you were going and someone saw that in you.  You want experience, you want gain, you want day in and day out to be rooted in something you love. You will stand up and say I am passionate about me, and only me, and going off on this tangent will be a sine that you are not willing to cosine your life away with anyone else; the point at which these lines intersect can only be (FUTURE, FUTURE). 

I'll Do It Myself

                If you ask my parents what my first phrase as a baby was, I’m sure they’d give a mundane answer like, “I’m hungry,” or “I pottied,” or “goddamnit, Jessica” (we repeat what we hear, right?).  I, however, would disagree and have to say it was, “I’ll do it myself.”  And even if I didn’t say it aloud, I know the words were bouncing from cortex to cortex, unmumbling themselves, trying to carry the weight that they would hold one day; when my mom poured my cereal, when my dad tied my shoes, when my sisters helped me put toothpaste on my bristles, my synapses were screaming, “LET. ME. DO. THIS.”

                It’s the eve of my 22^nd birthday, and I would make a wise conjecture that Taylor Swift was not in my position when she wrote that pop song that will forever occupy the Facebook statuses of all those entering Twenty-Two-Dom who have nothing else wittier to say on social media.  If I were to re-write a few verses, maybe it would go something like this:

“It feels like the perfect night to look over my lease forms,
and sign on the X’s, uh uh, so broke.
It feels like the perfect night, to crash before midnight,
‘cause I got a real job, uh uh, still broke…

…We should have warned you,
get used to feeling 22.”

Or something along those lines.  I doubt it would have received much radio play.

                I didn’t know what independence was until this summer.  I’ve had the, “I’ll do this myself” attitude for years, but during the past few months, I’ve realized it’s hard to walk when you haven’t quite mastered the crawl.  Let’s be honest, up until this summer, I was still shitting myself with contentment and sitting in my Huggies, waiting for mom and antibacterial wipes to come to the rescue (if we’re sticking with the baby metaphor, we may as well not half-ass it).  I have lived in comfort my entire life, and was so busy “claiming my independence” that I failed to face the fact that I had no idea what independence entailed.  You can’t buy it on the emergency VISA that your parents gave you (wherein the lenient, self-governed stipulations state Cole Hahn and Michael Kors as your primary emergency contacts).  Independence is a responsibility.  And a goal.  And a mindset that correlates positively with well-being.  And sometimes gaining it ain’t no stroll in the Lexus that your mom lets you borrow that runs on company gas.  But the paradox is, to find it, you have to say, “I’ll do it myself.”

                I stared at the ad on Craigslist.  To call, or not to call; that is the question.  And depending on the answer, I could A.) be homeless in September B.) have a cozy, albeit very expensive, studio apartment for myself and my little pup secured for a year, or C.) take my chances and let some whackjob with a corndog fetish contact me and ask if I want in on “a super-chronic, 3 br 2 ba apt, HOT GIRLS PREFERABLY**”

(**this was an actual ad on Craigslist.  Minus the corndog part.  That was just an assumption).

I e-mailed my mom immediately.  My mother; the woman who paid to put me through Catholic school K-12, a private college for 4 years, and numerous graduate school application fees and visits  (my dad deserves credit here, as well, but he was the second one I contacted; that’s always been our chain of communication [unless I need a DD, then it’s Dad all the way]).  I sent her pictures of the small, $1,225/month studio in a nice area, only a mile and a half from campus that also happened to be pet-friendly.  I was almost giddy when I sent the e-mail, waiting for her approval.  The response I received wasn’t one I was used to: “That’s great! It’s your apartment, if you feel comfortable paying for it and you like it, get it.  It’s your decision.”

Wait.  What?  I just…I can get it…wait…is there a catch here?  You always make me ask permission for big decisions!  Like, remember when I had to ask for permission before spending the night at Kim Toop’s house after prom, and then after you gave me permission, you called to check to see if I was there, and I wasn’t because I wanted to go somewhere where I knew parents weren’t home and bottles would be poppin’?  Remember that, mom?  I NEED PERMISSION.  I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS MYSELF.

Desperately, I turned to my dad.  He was always the more level-headed and financial of the two Hines parents.  I know he’ll have some reservations.

“looks great.  Love the vids. Up to you.”

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE JUST GIVE ME PERMISSION?!  I need someone to affirm that I am making the right decision.

And then it hit me.  Like a truckload of tequila.

I. Am. An. Adult.  Those words felt heavy.  Like I had just lost something that I had been clinging to for the past 21 years; the security of having every move monitored, every step supported, and most acerbically, all decisions dichotomized by the parental panel before approval.

                This was the first of many adult things (by “adult” I mean, “expensive beyond my means”) I had to do.  And while half of me was scared shitless to sign that lease agreement and send in my first savings-account-obliterating payment, half of me started to feel liberated.  And excited.  And despite the fact that I’d be MC Hammer broke after making all the payments for my new temporary home, I felt a sense of pride and self-sufficiency that I had never experienced before.  Coming from the girl who still makes her mother call the dentist and gynecologist to make her appointments, this was one step closer to being a fully functioning adult in the real world (and hopefully one step closer to sleeping without my bathroom light on).

                The preparation for graduate school hasn’t been easy, nor has the transition.  I think back to 7 months ago when I had my fingers crossed, hoping some program somewhere would see potential (which was especially questionable, considering most of my writing samples included the staples of my writing: sarcasm and profanity) in me.  The day I received an e-mail from Boston University’s College of Communication, ranked 8^th in the U.S., I was driving on IN-62, and started bawling (I know it’s bad enough that I’m checking my e-mail while driving, but what’s even worse is crying and singing to myself “This Girl Is On Fire” while trying to navigate the backroads of southern Indiana).  That’s when I knew my shit was going to get rocked here pretty soon, and I was hellbent on being ready for it. 

                Since my acceptance, I’ve been weaning myself off my dependence on others.  There’s never been a feeling more visceral (and cringe-worthy, at times) than knowing that you are your own keeper.  And I’m all about the nitty-gritty and the down and dirty, so bring it on.  When it comes to my future and my goals, I figure it’s better if I do it myself.  If I believe in my talents, then who the hell can tell me that I can’t?  I’d rather do it by myself.

                So here I am.  On the eve of my 22^nd birthday.  Sipping Oliver Peach Honey wine, and watching my little furball make pee spots on the carpet as I blog.  And you know, I can’t help but be happy for myself.  Because through all the years of guidance, I found independence.  Come September, I’ll have $32,000 sitting in my bank account, and Uncle Sam will be happily draining me with sky-high student loan interest rates.  I’ll have tuition to pay, and rent to make, and groceries to buy and a life all on my own.  And despite my protests, I may even have a little help from my parents—you can call it the Fund for Future Starving Artists.  But no matter what I’m up against, I think this process has empowered me and made me realize that I’ll have to do it myself.