Cue Quarter-Life Crisis (Is that a thing?)

Hey guys, it’s been a while.

Mid-January I was made aware of the opportunity to graduate with honors (something I didn’t think I could do), and since I only had to contract 2 more courses for honors in order to achieve this, I decided it would be a manageable and worthwhile pursuit. As fate would have it, things were a bit more complicated than that.  For my honors contracted courses, I ended up doing, in total, about 7-8 extra assignments between my honors courses (3 of them large projects/papers) and I also had to write an honors thesis, expanding a paper from a previous course to 10 pages and then presenting my thesis in front of the faculty for my department. On top of all that, on my honors graduation application, my cumulative GPA was about .03 short of what it needed to be in order to graduate with honors, and in order to bring it up, my semester GPA had to be about a 3.7. Additionally, I still had to manage leading a student org, engaging with my intentional community, working, volunteering, and (fragments of) a social life. [/excuses]

Sorry I didn’t have time to write, I hardly had time to sleep.

All ended well enough, though. I graduated with a medallion around my neck and a semester GPA of 3.9! And now I’m done. Forever.

Yay?

Sooo… yeah. Here I am. A grown up. Living jobless in my parent’s house. Writing a blog post.

Ok, so I just graduated. 3(ish?) weeks ago. By all reports, most people don’t have until several months after graduation. I definitely should not feel like a loser. I graduated with honors! I’ve had 2 internships and I do a lot of volunteering! I’m a hard worker!

But the fact remains: I do feel kind of like a loser. Up at school, I was told time and time again not to have a gap in my resume. And a few weeks isn’t really a gap... I’ve spent some of this time exploring different Pro Bono volunteering opportunities to keep me sharp while I look for a job. Every second I’m not employed or doing something productive with the skills I’ve spent the past four years developing feels like I’m wasting precious time in a job opportunity hourglass that’s about to run out. I know that’s not true. Everyone knows that’s not true.

There’s just so much uncertainty in my life now. For the first time in my entire life, I have no idea where I’ll be this September. I could be exactly where I want to be: in a full-time, degree-utilizing job in West Michigan. I could be thousands of miles away doing PR in New York or somewhere completely unexpected like Kansas City or something. Or I could be an unemployed 21 year old living with her parents. As someone who hates risks and uncertainty, this makes me super uncomfortable.

And I guess uncertainty in my future makes me feel like a loser? That doesn’t make much sense when you break it down.

I think part of my problem is that I’m going about this the wrong way. You know, for the first time since I can remember, my summer is completely free. I’m not working, I don’t have any school obligations; I’m completely free. I’m a 21-year old and I have a car: I can do whatever I want. As an adult, it’s time to stop seeing the future as a risk and start seeing it as an opportunity. I need to stop limiting myself, I need to take risks. If I don’t explore, if I don’t take risks, if I don’t even apply for jobs halfway across the country because I’m too afraid of what might happen, I’ll end up the same place I’ve always been.

So here goes. I’ll start small, but it’s time to stop tying myself down with fear of the unknown, and time to start embracing a world of possibility.

Living With Others is Hard

What do you get when you put 7-8 very different people who don’t know each other in a small house 15 minutes away from campus?

Surprise! It’s not immediate hugging, an abundance of rainbow stickers and best-friendship. I’ll give you a hint:

 it’s conflict. (My dear old friend… remember that one?)

Here’s the thing about relationships with people who are in very close proximity to you and who are not your family: we all have expectations for how those people will behave. 

Newsflash: they will not behave that way for you. They are their own person. They live by their own values and expectations. (GASP!)

I know, I know. This is a lot to take in. Feel free to take a seat if you need to.

In all seriousness though, you don’t really realize the expectations that you have for people until they behave in a way that completely disregards your expectations for them. And we all have expectations, for better and for worse. For example, although I’d like to believe that I’m considerate and community-minded, I know for a fact that I am fiercely independent. For this reason, I expect people to not ask me questions, to respect my choices without interference and to give me space, but this means that I tend to also expect people I interact with to be independent and solitary creatures who are self-reliant and self-motivated and who will mostly concern themselves with themselves.

Unfortunately, not everyone is me.

Correction:*fourtunately not everyone is me

People around me will question me and my decisions, people will want to be affirmed through frequent and lengthy contact with me, and people will need me to motivate them and hold them accountable for their lives. Normally, this isn’t a big deal, because most relationships in our lives outside of family don’t require us to spend enough time with others to the point where we notice them defying our expectations. (Anyway, we tend to share similar expectations as our family members because our expectations for relationships are partially shaped by the standards of the relationships we grew up in)

However, when you’re living in a house with 7-8 of your unrelated contemporaries, small moments that defy your relational expectations become more noticeable. Differences in relational expectations for each other create conflict.

My experience in an intentional community has been less about volunteering and community involvement, and more of a lesson in patience, humility, and getting along with personalities that defy my expectations.

The thing is, you have to learn to discard your expectations. Yeah, whatever, waahh that sucks, blah blah blah, but really: despite what you may think, you don’t know what’s best for other people. Let me rephrase that: everyone outside of your worldview comes from a completely different place than you, and they all have good reasons for believing and expecting the things that they do.

While it’s important for me to make my expectations clear so people can learn how to best work with me, it’s just as important that I understand other people’s expectations for me. I have to come to realize that people aren’t nagging me, they’re holding me accountable. That I need space, but others need proximity.

This kind of close relationship entails picking your battles. You need to give a little respect for the expectations of others if you wish to receive that same kind of respect from your peers. Sometimes you need to wave a white flag, and other times you need to be firm and explain why you expect what you do.

It’s one of the hardest things I’m having to learn. There are days where I really, really suck at giving up my expectations. But realizing that I have expectations at all is one of the biggest steps I can take toward being able to form better, stronger relationships with others. Learning how to deal with people who are different than you is a big part of growing up. 

If you can learn to be respectful, humble, patient and kind to people that you don't understand or agree with, I think that's a huge indicator of maturity, or reaching the ever-elusive "adulthood."

For now, I'm still learning.

Happy New Year!

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve last posted… I got busy and then I wasn’t committed to writing posts every week, and things kind of got away from me. But I’m back, and I’m hoping to be better about writing this year. 

A lot happened between my last post and now: my summer internship was a huge success and a very enjoyable time for me to learn about PR and marketing in a professional environment, I began my last year of college, I moved in to my Project Neighborhood house, I sewed a ton of costumes at work, I got a new internship in the city of Grand Rapids, my friend got married, a few more of my friends/relatives got engaged, and I turned 21. You could say 2013 ended on kind of a crazy note. I’ll get to talking about all these experiences in time; to reflect on all of them now would make for an excessively long post.

2014 is going to be a big year for me. I graduate college in May, which means I’ll be starting out my life as an adult this year (which hopefully means a job and a place of my own for me! Although I know these things never just fall in to place like you expect/want…) Even though I didn’t think I was going to make any resolutions this year, I ended up making a resolution and listing a few things to hope/wish for.  Hopefully 2014 is good to me!

In 2014 I will…

Cut haters out of my life

Especially on social media. I have a tendency to let people say some pretty nasty things to me without ever challenging that. But you know what? If people aren’t going to be respectful or speak out of kindness, then I am not obligated to sit and listen to them. Plain and simple. 

In 2014 I hope to…

1.  Publish my poetry—why not take a risk? My professors say it’s good, I like it, so I might as well go all out.

2. Update my blog weekly—heh. Hopefully I’ll be better this year.

3. Go on an Adventure!—I don’t know what that will look like necessarily: road trip maybe? See a new city? Go to the zoo? That’s what I’m supposed to do while I’m young, right?

4. Read 12 books—1 book per month. I like books, and this will give me an excuse to read more.

5. Quilt something—I really would love to learn to quilt, and this will get me started!

6. Sew at least 1 dress/outfit—I love sewing, so this one should be easy.

7. Win a costume contest—I love sewing, I love Halloween, and I love winning. More great motivation to do more sewing.

8. Attend a fun social thing/make a friend—I need to get out more. Without motivation, I’ll just get up, go to work, go home and sit on the couch all night. Not good.

9. Spend less time on social media—As a PR person, I need to update my social media more, but I can do that while still spending less time online. I’ll get more done that way, and I’ll probably be happier too.

In 2014 I wish…

For a good start to adulthood

To learn to be independent

To kick off my career in Grand Rapids

To come into my own

May your 2014 be as totally rad as I’m expecting mine to be!