Dress Up

    When we were little we all used to play dress up. And as you got older you would only dress up for special occasions, maybe a dress here a tie there. But what I’m learning about the world of professionalism is how to dress like an adult. Throughout college, my go to outfit was a pair of leggings, Toms, and a tank top. Now I know this won’t cut it in the professional world and it’s time for me to look for something a little more grown up. The problem for me is that right now, shopping is a nightmare. I am in the midst of losing weight through Weight Watchers, which has been going wonderfully, however I’m still not my goal weight yet. Being a curvy woman makes shopping difficult to begin with, but add size fluctuation and it becomes even more frustrating. Although it’s not fun shopping for professional clothes right now, I know it’s something I can’t avoid much longer.

    When I think about my future self, I see a woman who is poised, dressed perfectly and professionally with a great job and who ultimately has her life together. As of now, I am none of those things, but I think it all comes one step at a time. My first step, aside from applying to jobs, is looking the part. As much as it pains me, I have to trade in my leggings for trousers and my tank tops for blazers.

    Since this is new territory for me, it can be difficult to decide how I feel about this. On the one hand, I’m excited to move forward with my life and be the woman I see myself becoming. On the other hand, there is a loss I’m beginning to feel as my college self starts to slip away to be replaced by the more sophisticated model of me. Don’t get me wrong, sophisticated is a good thing, but being able to throw on whatever you want and go to class was pretty nice too.

    I think in the end, growing up and nostalgia go hand in hand, but there must be a balance. There is always going to be a longing for those comfortable college years, but I know as much as I want to live in my yoga pants and flip flops, eventually I have to move on to more adult things like button downs and heels. I know getting there won’t be easy, but my future self will thank me for all the effort when she’s impeccably dressed. And one day the sophisticated me will look back and smile with only a twinge of nostalgia because the future holds even brighter things.

They (Used to) Tell Me Dream Big

    As a recent college grad, one of the most asked, and possibly most feared questions we can get is what are we going to do now. Some people know exactly what they are going to do right when they get out of school and others have absolutely no idea what they are doing with their lives and are scared stiff at the very prospect. I however, am somewhere in the middle of these two. Right now, all I know is that writing is my passion and that’s all I really want to be doing, and I want to be doing it within the entertainment world. Of course I’m terrified, but I’m also excited to start being who I was always meant to be.

    Now when I tell people that I’m an English major, another one of the most asked questions and subsequently my pet peeve of a question is ‘so are you going to be a teacher?’. The answer to this overly asked question is unequivocally no. As I’ve told many many people, it takes a certain kind of person to be a teacher, and I applaud them, but that’s just not me, it never has been. I think my dreams have always been bigger than that and I’ve known that I wanted to be a writer for most of my life. Sometimes I wish I was meant to do something else, like being a teacher or wanting to work a regular nine to five job, but it’s not who I was meant to be. I was meant to be a writer, a storyteller, a creator of the impossible just by using that thing called imagination and something as simple and complex as words. The art of stringing together words to make thoughts, to create something out of nothing, is what I am absolutely in love with. This is the reason I can’t just settle for anything less than what I want.

    I know there are so many older adults who believe that I should get a ‘practical’ job because you need to pay the bills somehow and because being a writer doesn’t pay much and because breaking into what I actually want to do is hard work and not a lot of people make it. Thinking about it, it’s sad that when I was little, I was told I could do anything I set my mind to, which I still believe to be true, but now that I’m older everyone is telling me just to get a job that pays better. I respect the opinions of my elders, I really do, but at the end of the day I have to do what’s right for me and I know I need to try to make it in my chosen field. Being a creative writer may not be practical, but it’s what I love and trying to do anything else before I’ve even tried getting jobs I actually want would be giving up on my dreams essentially. Sure, some people say it’s just putting them on the back burner and you can still write in your spare time, but let’s be honest, settling for a mediocre dead end job just because it pays the bills is a dream killer and a soul sucking abyss of awfulness. At least that’s the way I see it.

    To an older generation, I get that following my dreams does not seem like the smart way to go, maybe not the most lucrative at first, but I truly believe that I can do great things within my field, if only I am able to get there. This generation is full of people who have created jobs because they simply didn’t want that general nine to five job they knew they'd hate and successfully did something about it. If I don’t try to live my dreams, I’ve already given up completely. And that's just not going to happen because if there’s one thing I am, it’s a fighter. I know what I want, I’m never going to stop fighting until I get it, and when I do get it, I’m never going to stop being passionate about it. So for all of you with dreams you long to achieve, but might not have the support you want, be brave, be bold and do what you love because you only get this life. Don’t waste it trying to fit into some sort of societal mold. We may be learning how to adult, but never forget who you really are.

Pumped For Firsts

In the process of learning how to adult, there are many learning steps to be taken. Last week I got my first car, which I am utterly ecstatic about. Now I know that for a lot of people, a car is something they get at sixteen or seventeen, but that’s just not the way I did things. Since I’ve never really needed a car until now, I’ve also never learned how to pump gas, which is something that was rectified just a few days ago. Things like pumping your gas seem like no big deal, but the thing about doing anything new, is that you need to know how to do it. A family friend explained pumping gas to me as if it were like having sex. Put in crude terms, you just put it in and keep it in until it's finished, you’ll know when it’s finished. When he told me this, I laughed out loud, but thinking about it, he’s not wrong. You could say I lost my gas pumping virginity the other day and like anything, the first time you do something, it’s bound to be clumsy and you’re not going to be a pro at it yet.

    I’m not going to compare all firsts to losing your virginity, but let’s be honest, there are some similarities, no matter if it's a first day at a new job, the first time pumping gas, or the first time trying to barbecue meat. Practice makes perfect, and in most places in my life, I’m hardly there yet.

    I’m beginning to learn that I am in for a lot of firsts being right out of college. You think you know the world from what you’ve lived, but the truth is, there is so much more out there to discover. Every time we begin somewhere new, we have to start all over from the bottom and work our way up. Just like moving from middle school to high school and high school to college, the professional world is not much different in the chain of hierarchy. That’s just how it works, no matter what opinions you may have on it. Personally, I’m excited to see what my next firsts will be. They can be daunting, but it’s important to remember that the things that scare us are often the things most worth doing. We have to accept that we won’t be pros right out of the gate, but with time and diligence, we’ll get there.