I'm Back

Oh hi. It’s 2017 now. I was going to start out with some “I am oh so sorry I neglected this for so long blah blah blah blah” post, but as per usual with me, life got busy and this took a seat on the back burner.

After what was a whirlwind of a year and then the political hell that followed after Election Day 2016, life just got in the way of my creative writing. I got a little lost career-wise, found myself again, moved, did some traveling, etc. So here we are.

Valentine’s Day 2017 and it’s time for a check in and a recommitment to keep myself sane by actually writing in my real voice again.

Here we go.

A list of new personal developments:

• Moved in with the boyfriend and settled in a Little Italy apartment.
• Started bullet journaling
• Realized I was kind of miserable at my job and it was negatively impacting my personal life.
• Started hunting for a new job.
• Did a few initial interviews and then landed an in-person interview.
• Went to New Orleans with the boyfriend.
• Started freelancing again.
• Went to interview and landed the job.
• Agonized over making the career switch (Mom told me it wasn’t a great idea).
• Decided I needed to make the switch for my sanity and happiness.
• Turned in my first ever two-weeks notice.

• Started new job: loved it.
• Celebrated Christmas with my family and then traveled to Chicago alone to celebrate with the boyfriend and his family.
• Decided it was time to move.
• Started Keto - lost 14 pounds and almost two jeans sizes after a month and a half!
• Found an apartment we loved, found a person to sublet the old place, and moved: all in two weeks. Phew.
• Settled into new apartment in Ohio City.

So...that is a lot of things. But I am sure you can see now why I didn’t write for a year. I know I could’ve recommitted sooner, but I didn’t and I am back now.

I want to make a new list of commitments for this blog and what I will be writing about here.

1. Things that happen in politics. (It’s vitally important there is a dialogue)
2. My journey with Keto. (More people need to know about this diet and how it works)
3. My apartment and the neighborhood I live in.
4. Bullet Journaling
5. My life and new developments in it.

The blog will change a little. I think it needs to. It needs to grow as I do, but the important thing, is I am back to writing for myself again and it feels damn good.

I made it.

I’m coming up on my one-year mark of graduating at John Carroll.

I can’t believe it.

It doesn’t seem possible.

One year? One whole year?

One year ago I was apathetically preparing for finals, enthusiastically preparing my liver for Put-In-Bay, and begrudgingly preparing my brain to deal with the very real reality of “shit….this is it. It’s almost over…now what?”

My mother told me that it was going to take a year. That I needed to give myself one full year before I started thinking I had somehow failed at the whole adult (well…pseudo-adult) thing.

Needless to say, my type-A personality and eternal lack of impatience saw this as an essentially impossible task. But here I am. One year later. And like…I survived. I did it.

She told me last year that by this time this year I’d have a job I loved, a new (well new to me) car, be living in a new apartment, be able to travel, and maybe even have the whole ‘dating as a millennial 20-something” figured out . And…by some miracle, act of God, luck, or some combination of the three…here I am.

I swear she must have some crazy foresight or something because she was right, but like, aren’t mothers always right?

So as a sit here at my job I love, with a boyfriend whom I adore, a car that doesn’t threaten to kill me every time it rains, and getting ready to finally move out of my deathtrap apartment and into Little Italy, I’m here to tell you that you will do it too.

You will be able to say the same sort of things that I am now.

Your goals are most likely different than mine. You may not even know what they are. And you may be freaking out about not having a job or a place to live or what you are going to do without those late night drinks with friends on the porch watching the freshmen navigate Warrensville.

But it’s okay.

You’re going to be okay.

Just give yourself a year. One year.

Don’t even think about looking back and comparing yourself to were you thought you “should” be or where anyone else is until you start approaching that one-year mark.

Your whole life can change in that one year.

So enjoy these last few weeks. Enjoy the finals and the celebrations and Put in Bay and Senior Week and Baccalaureate and graduation practice and your family taking 2000 pictures.

Then the second you take off that graduation cap and gown, after all the pictures and tears and congratulatory dinners are over, set a calendar reminder for May 22, 2017.

Title it “You Did It.”

Because you’re going to do it.

You just need to give yourself time. 

Aren't We Exhausted?

127 Dead in Suicide Bombings and Shootings Across Paris

Mizzou's Black Students Cope with Fear Spawned by Death Threats

Six-month-old Shot on Cleveland's East Side

Anonymous Writer Warns John Carroll With Threatening Letters

Headline after headline after headline have come across my newsfeeds about tragedy, destruction and death. Every time I open a web page or a social media site or run into a friend, I get another story about how people have been killed or threatened and for no reason other than because someone didn't like something that they were doing or how they were living their life.

In Paris, dozens of people were killed by radical jihadists. In the US, students in universities have been forced to deal with death threats. Death. Threats. All because they are demanding freedom from racism and discrimination. Kids and adults are being shot all over Cleveland because of continued violence from drugs, gangs, poverty, and much more. And at my alma mater. The gorgeous university I was so proud to graduate from, some psychotic person is distributing threatening letters warning anyone who teaches evolution, supports LGBTQ persons or is an LGBTQ person that they are going to hell and will be punished.

And here we are all arguing about a fucking red cup with overpriced coffee in it.

Are we tired of the violence yet? Are we exhausted at the perpetual loss of life from school shootings and bombings and violence and discrimination all aimed at people simply because they are different?

From what I see from quite a few people it seems like no, no we aren't.

Obviously France should've closed their borders to the thousand upon thousands of people fleeing their countries because they were obviously the ones who blew people up and shot them in cold blood. Why offer sanctuary to people desperate to start over and find a new home? Why think that you can go to a concert and not worry about being killed?

Fleeing your country with nowhere else to go? Want to go enjoy an evening out and not be shot? Too damn bad. You're different.


Obviously teachers should carry guns at schools both elementary and university alike. Why expect schools to be a place of safety and security?

Oh. You want to learn and teach without fear of being shot? Too bad. I don't like what your teaching/learning.

Obviously any LGBTQ person should just expect to be told that being gay is a sickness. You can fix it.

Oh. You want to get married, raise kids, and not have anyone second guess you being a fit parent or a person worthy of equal rights and treatment? Too bad. You're different.

Obviously minorities should just expect to be treated like second class citizens.

Oh its 2015 and you thought we we're past racism? Too bad. You're different.

When the hell are we going to stop blaming people for these horrible things that happen to them? When are we going to stand up as a community of people and say "Stop. This is wrong."?

When for the love of God are we going to say "Religion is not an excuse to kill people or treat them like shit."

God told us to love our neighbor. God told us love is the greatest gift of all. God told us that we have a responsibility to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, house the homeless.

So shut the fuck up about how you are treating people like shit because that's what God says.

We have a responsibility now to stop this. We have to act and make all of this horror and death turn into something beautiful. We have to stand together.

Nothing is going to change unless we put aside these petty differences and work as a family of equals.

You think that Millennials don't care about what's going on in the world? You think that we just want to take our Instagrams and bury our head in the sand? You think that we are all bleeding heart liberals with no knowledge of how the world works? That's not it.

We hate this. We hate the world we grew up in. We hate the world that we are having to raise kids in. We're done being passive. So stop thinking that we whitewash everything with shades of peace and happiness.

And for the love of God, look at your life and what you are doing and how you are treating people and ask yourself: "If I was shot tomorrow at a soccer game, would I be proud of the way I've lived?"

Will they think I'm crazy if I text back too fast?

Every day that I drive to work, I pass by rows and rows of these little, perfect suburban houses and all I can do is shudder at the thought of ever living in one.

Now before you jump all over me saying that I’m judging the suburbs too quickly, please give me a moment to explain myself: my generation keeps pushing the “married with kids” age further and further back. For women, the average age for becoming a first time mother is now at an all time high of 26 and most marry (if they marry at all) at this age or later on average.

Now I could just go through the article Time wrote with the catchy, yet vaguely insulting title of “Help! My Parents are Millennials!” which was about par for the course considering their equally obnoxious “The ME ME ME Generation” cover article from 2013, but instead of spewing the same nonsense “research” that Time seems to think embodies and explains my generation, I’ll just go ahead and give you my reasons for marrying and having kids later (if at all).

If you haven’t talked to a 20-something recently and heard their loud and dripping with distain sigh in response to the “so, you seeing anyone?” question, let me go ahead and shine some light on this reaction.

Most of the time, we can’t really give you a straight answer as to if we’re “seeing someone” because we don’t even know what classifies as “seeing someone” anymore. We can be “talking” to someone (read: texting somewhere between sporadically or constantly), casually dating a few people, sleeping with someone, spending a lot of time with someone and being romantic but there’s no official title, seeing someone a lot when you are out and hooking up with them after a night at the bars, dating someone with a pledge of “commitment,” or the ever elusive white whale of the boyfriend/girlfriend title.

So the short answer to the “Are you seeing anyone?” question: we actually don’t know.

This is probably why it’s taking us longer to get married. We get so stuck in the endless merry-go-round of nonsense that is 21^st century dating that we can’t even figure out what dating even means anymore. Usually we just kind of end up stumbling into relationships by accident and then after a fairly painful series of “So…what are we?” conversations, you occasionally end up in a relationship.

As someone who goes back and forth every week (sometimes every day) with deciding if I’m done with dating or not, it’s a suuuuuper fun experience (did I make the sarcasm clear enough there?).

Even finding a person to go through this painful dance with is like finding a needle in a haystack that’s on fire.

There are bars, coffee shops, Tinder, OkCupid, Match, speed dating events, friends of friends, work, college, that person who was bold enough to put their number on your Starbuck’s cup, parents’ choices, siblings’ suggestions on and on and on until we can barely keep straight who we’ve met in real life and who we’ve just electronically communicated with.

Imagine for a second analyzing and reanalyzing every single letter you typed in a text message and sending it to four different people to read before you send it to the intended recipient because you weren’t sure if “Okay!” was too enthusiastic a response to a “Let’s grab a drink sometime” message.

See what I mean? It’s like managing a second life totally outside of yourself because you’re not convinced that you, as you are, are good enough for that person getting that message.

We have a million and one ways to get rejected now and you’re asking us why we aren’t settling down sooner? Why would we choose to rush into things when most of us come from divorced/separated/constantly fighting/only-pseudo functioning parents?

We’re petrified of ending up alone, but at the same time we’re petrified of ending up in a relationship that’s miserable, so much so that we sometimes find ourselves backsliding into things that were comfortable and kind of functional at one point so “Why not?” 

Now at one point I know that we’re all going to end up right where we are supposed to be. And as someone who is constantly confused and frustrated by dating I can say with assurance (okay….pseudo-assurance) that we’ll find that person for all of us.

It’s just a matter of timing and chemistry (A la Robin: “And timing’s a bitch”). But we’ll get there.

Just stop rushing us into commitment and making us feel bad about pushing the marriage and babies age up. We’re going to take our sweet time, so you might as well just sit back with the popcorn and relax. We’ll stumble into it eventually.

Coincidence? I think not.

So aside from the fact that one day I may die on my commute from one of the countless people who absolutely cannot drive on the East side, I realized that I have been terrible about writing and I have something hilariously funny to share.

So Sar and I were out last night and as per usual our "one quick drink" turned into three (...typical) and then this hysterical thing happened.

It seriously just embodies my life at this point. I can't help but laugh at it.

Last night, when I got home from the bar, I was getting ready for bed and this asshole left me a creepy as fuck voicemail.

Yeah. So I lied. There's nothing funny about today's post. I just felt that I needed to do something to communicate to the person who called me at 12:56 AM from a blocked number and decided it would be hysterical to leave me an actually terrifying message in which they say my name and say a bunch of things about my blog.

I will be filing a police report about this and releasing all of my permissions for them to go through my phone records to find you. (Think this isn't a real thing? Here, I found the link to the law it falls under so even you can understand it with your obvious lack of basic intelligence).

There are only a handful of people who could have possibly done this considering I got a new number and you must be a good enough friend of mine to have it (that or you're an insane cyberstalker and in that case here's how you can be prosecuted too!).

Whoever did this obviously doesn't know me very well because if you thought you were going to just scare me without any consequences...Surprise! You lost.

I hope your 57 seconds of fun was worth it. If you want to talk to me about it or own up please by all means give me a call or shoot me a text as you obviously have my number.

Happy Thursday, asshole.

XOXO,

Abby

Rock Bottom Has Nasty Spikes and Perspective

I hit absolute rock bottom this last week. And when I say rock bottom, I mean like I basically spent four consecutive days in a perpetual out of body experience. I didn’t know who I was, or where I was, or why I was there. I was saying things to people that terrified them, but I don’t remember any of it. It was a full-blown panic attack about my life. 

Now to say I didn’t see this coming would be ignorant. I had expected it for some time. I just didn’t know how serious and scary it would be. 

For those of you concerned: I’m fine now. I think everything bottomed out and now we’re on our way back up. To the friends and family (mother) who helped me through it/experienced me in the middle of it: I love you so much and I’m so sorry for everything but also so eternally grateful. And to the losers who hit on me in the bar at the beginning of my epic downward slide: Screw you and your “I’m deep” bullshit and P.S. still low-key pissed you made me miss the entire Bills/Browns game. 

Anyway, today’s post: “The Implosion: How one 20-something found out rock bottom hurts a hell of a lot more than expected” 

So turns out I wasn’t dealing with the whole graduating, starting a new yet still not permanent job, casual summer dating, friends all over the place, and living alone for the first time ever thing as well as I thought. 

In a phrase: Adulting is hard. 

After being on the job search for about nine months and getting countless rejections (two in particular) for jobs that thought I was incredibly qualified for, I felt like I was coming to the end of my rope. And yeah yeah, I know how they say just tie and knot and hang on but I was getting so battered by the situation. Like more than I ever thought possible.

So enter the downward spiral. I just felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I felt like I had done everything right. I did well all through school. I got into a good college. I worked my ass off in said college. Gained admission to all the academic honors societies, grew into leadership roles in clubs and organizations. Worked summer internships and jobs. I did it all right. 

So what was the one thing that I failed to do? The one thing that I didn’t consider? 

Failure. 

I didn’t even consider the possibilities of roadblocks and hurdles and failings. I just assumed that it would all fall into place “eventually.” And me, being the naturally anxious person that I am, kept getting more and more flustered by the looming deadline of my summer internship coming ever closer. 

So I fell. 

And I fell harder than I ever thought possible. 

I crashed and burned. 

I’ve never, in my life, felt or experienced emotions and life come down so hard on me. So much so that when I woke up Sunday I felt like I had just run a marathon while simultaneously expelling every ounce of emotion I had in my being. 

So after a much needed outdoor church service combined with a solo Yours Truly breakfast run, I finally felt like I had processed my life. And this is what I learned…

You will fail. After college, it’s not all going to be perfect. It’s not going to look how you expected and honestly, you’re probably going to be really freaking confused and flustered for the entire summer and maybe fall after you graduate. 

Now this isn’t to say that there aren’t exceptions to the rule. We all know that one girl/guy who married the love of their life, had the picture perfect wedding, moved to a fabulous new city, and somehow (and this honestly has to be witchcraft) BOTH found jobs. But they are the exception. 

You. You are the rule. (Yes, I stole that from “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Chill.)

You have to prepare yourself for failure. For stumbling. For falling down, hurting like hell, and picking yourself up again.

But it won’t be a waste. You’re going to learn more about yourself in those few (or many) months of pain and suffering and uncertainty than you ever thought possible. And what’s more, you are going to learn how strong you are and how much shit and pain you can take and still walk away from it all. I wasn’t prepared for the pain. I wasn’t ready for the agony of waiting and worrying for months and months for and about jobs that I was going to get rejected from. For wasting time on guys who were going to ghost me. For crying over a job that drained me in more ways than I thought possible while also teaching me more about myself and what I needed than ever.

But I’m okay. I think I survived. And I think this was the worst of it. And I think I can finally see a sparkle of light on the other side of this really freaking long, dark and dismal tunnel. And I’ve decided to give myself until May 2016 to fully transition (because you know, I’m a deadlines person and this one is actually realistic). 

And you know what else? 

You are going to survive too. At times, you are going to look at your life in the coming months and not recognize it or probably even yourself but that doesn’t mean all is lost. 

You will survive. It’ll probably hurt. You’re probably gonna fail...a lot. But you will make it out alive and smarter than before on the other side. You have people. You have hope. And you are stronger than you can possibly imagine.

The Documentation of a Generation

Have you ever gotten annoyed at someone who stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to take a picture of something?

There you are, just minding your own business trying to get from point A to point B when you’re all of the sudden halted in your tracks by some idiotic 20-something whipping out their iPhone to snap a photo of something.

It happens all the time. Concerts. Bars. Sporting events. Family events. Dates. Coffee. Dinner. Etc. Etc.

People are always pulling out their cell phones to document their lives (Wait. Let me take a selfie.) and people are getting increasingly angry about it.

So, a bit of a lighter blog today after the relative heaviness of the whole ghosting/job search/mono things…”Wait, I have to Instagram this!”: The Documentation of a Generation.

With the rise of cell phones with cameras came the creation of applications that allowed us to document our lives. It seemed like everyone was always taking out their cellphones in order to capture what they were experiencing at that moment. They allowed us an easy and convenient way to remember something in the moment.

Then came the rise of social media. And then the offshoot of that in mobile, instant social media (i.e. Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter).

We now had more ways than ever to share exactly what we were doing every second we were doing it.

Cue the entrance of FOMO (That’s “fear of missing out” The more you know…) and the sudden rise of people being so plugged in that they were no longer paying attention to what was going on around them.

Obviously, as with any new thing, a movement started to encourage people to put down their phones, stop taking Instas, and be present in the world around them. (Seriously, how many articles have you read about “Go Dark For Dinner,” “Unplugging Day,” or the infamous Jack White barrage against people taking pictures and videos at his concerts. Yep. It’s a thing. He’ll yell at you in the middle of a set. Best leave the phone in the car.)

But it still hasn’t stopped people from snapping (That’s the verb for using Snapchat if you were curious. Obviously adding “-ing” to the end of something automatically makes it a verb, right?) their way through happy hour and Friday nights downtown.

And you know what? I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Now I agree that we all need to unplug and turn off our screens for periods of time just so we can reacquaint ourselves with the world around us. This is why my phone is increasingly kept in my desk at work, in my living room when I go to read before bedtime, and why I try to get outside and run or walk every day committing to at least half my run/walk/frolic without my headphones in.  It helps me to get re-centered after a day spent inundated by screens and constant visual and auditory stimuli.

So consider this alternative opinion about those people stopping to Insta that sunset/skyline/shotski/shrimp scampi: They are doing it because they have found beauty in it and want to save that and share it.

Why is that a bad thing?

“Because I should be able to walk/eat/drink/party without watching some moron take a million pictures of it!”

While yes, I agree there is a line (no one wants to see a million pictures of your face in a club that’s so dark you can’t see your nose) but there is also a genuine value, I believe, in people documenting their lives and experiences in these instant ways.

What’s more, people taking pictures of these things means that they found beauty in them. They appreciated the way the sun shined through the branches of the tree, how a chef laid the steak on top of the potatoes, or what the condensation looked like rolling down their beer glass. And isn’t it a good thing to appreciate that seemingly ordinary beauty?

I think that’s why, more than anything, that we are constantly taking pictures and videos and posting them everywhere. We see something and say “Oh my gosh! That’s stunning/awesome! Everyone needs to see this!” I’d argue that these apps and phones have made us more creative. We see the world as artists rather than just passive inhabitants. We notice things more. Sure maybe that has caused a few people running into trees or challenging our mortality “For the Snap” but hasn’t it also made us see the world more beautifully?

Like everything, you must use it in moderation, but I think with the proper balance, stopping to take a picture of a street fair or your meal before you eat it isn’t an indication of the end of civilization and culture. It’s merely a sign of transition. So before you scoff at another 20-something pulling out their phone to take a picture, consider what they are seeing that is worthy of being documented.

And of course, use caution Instagramming while you walk. You never know when you might run into a tree.