Tag: family

PostGrad

Leaving Your Home

I’ve lived in New Jersey basically my whole life. I was born in another state, lived in another, but that was all before memories really started to form. I grew up in New Jersey, went to college in New Jersey, and built my life here.

And while I love everything about this extremely underrated state, I never wanted to stay here forever. First I wanted to go to college in Canada, then maybe Ireland, then I wanted to move south as quick as I could. But I never did. I stayed. Until now.

Now I’m leaving my home and I don’t think it’s quite hit me yet that everything I know will be a 6 hour drive away when I move to New Hampshire. All of my friends, most of my family, my coworkers, and familiarity will be so far gone. It’s nerve-wracking.

But I’m ready to leave it behind. My adult life has become so busy anyway that I think some distance between me and all of those things will actually make the bond stronger. If the bond becomes weaker, maybe it wasn’t meant to be in the first place.

I think it’s so important to start over somewhere new, to live in new places, to meet new people. Those experiences help shape you into a well-rounded person – it’s part of the reason I travel as much as I can. It makes me a better person. And even though I’m terrible at new things and meeting new people, I at least have to try.

It’s so sad to leave your home, but there is a whole world out there to explore and we owe it to ourselves to experience it.

woman sitting on chair beside brown table
Photo by Elle Hughes on Pexels.com
PostGrad

Give Yourself A Break

If you read my post where I documented all of my negative thoughts in 24 hours, you’ll know that I have a lot of negative thoughts about myself. We are so hard on ourselves. And this is on top of the weight that the world is already putting on our shoulders. Responsibilities are always going to pile up, people are always going to disappoint you, and life is just not going to go as planned.

But that’s okay. Seriously, give yourself a break.

You can’t control the actions of others. You can’t control how people treat you, you can’t control life’s unforeseen twists and turns. And you can’t punish yourself for the things you can’t control. Sometimes people are just going to suck and sometimes bad things are just going to happen.

For the things you can control, be realistic. You can’t always control every aspect of your job, you can’t just quit when time’s get tough. You can’t always control how much time you have in a day to just be yourself. But you can empower yourself to learn how to deal with it better, to speak up for yourself, or to make changes when change is necessary.

But you seriously need to give yourself a break.

Take one day this week to jot down every negative thing you thought about yourself. See how hard you’re being and how unrealistic you’re being. Because you deserve better from other people, but you definitely deserve better from yourself.

woman sitting on a cliff watching the body of water
Photo by Adrijana on Pexels.com
PostGrad

The Struggle Of Being Sentimental

I’ve never had a good memory and I’ve never had a huge attachment to places. But if I have a token of a place or a photo of a time, then I’m able to remember the event more clearly. I collect things from important people and places I go and I’ve become very sentimental.

I have boxes of things I’ve acquired over the years. Diaries, cards, ticket stubs, birthday presents that came from people who I left in the past, a lot of bad poetry from high school. I have a hard time throwing those things away because they are probably the only things that will trigger those memories for me.

I went through some of the boxes recently and could only throw away a few things. Diaries that mostly only spoke about how my family were jerks and how I was fat, photos of people who left me with bad feelings, and trinkets that I couldn’t find an attachment to.

But there’s so much left and the problem with being sentimental isn’t that I’m going to become a hoarder one day. The problem is that these things make me miss people who have hurt me, who I don’t even like anymore. They make me miss times that I was actually miserable during. But by being so sentimental, it’s easy to forget the bad. Even when they are things that should be long gone.

It’s hard to be so sentimental, I feel oddly attached to dumb things and then feel like reaching out to people who stopped caring about me altogether. It’s a dangerous road and I’ve found it best to just keep those boxes closed.

diary girl hand journal
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Break Ups

The Courage It Takes To End A Relationship

When break ups happen, I think the person who did the breaking up is often overlooked. The person who got broken up with must be so shattered, must need tons of support – but, no one stops to think about how hard it really is to break up with someone.

It takes a lot of courage to end something that has been so important to you. To cut ties with someone you loved, someone whose family has become your family, someone who knows everything about you. It takes courage to flip your life upside down because even though you’re not happy in the relationship, how do you know you’ll be happy outside the relationship?

And while it’s hard to get broken up with, it’s so hard to smash the heart of someone you care so deeply about. For a lot of people, it’s hard to be selfish and put yourself first and realize that the relationship isn’t making you happy anymore.

A lot of people would rather stay in a bad relationship forever than go through all that. They’d rather just settle than face the confrontation. I can’t blame them, especially if it’s just a fizzled relationship. Where there’s no reason to leave, but there’s also really no reason to stay.

I think it takes courage to end a relationship and start over. I admire the people who take this huge step because I know it could not have been an easy one for them. And I hope that everyone has enough self-awareness to get themselves out of something that’s making them unhappy.

black and white street walking zebra crossing
Photo by Jaymantri on Pexels.com
PostGrad

Finding A Home In People

When I was in college, my parents sold and moved out of my childhood home. At this point, I had been living at school most of the time, over every break. I came home one weekend and packed my stuff and said goodbye.

My childhood home hadn’t been my home for a long time. My room had been repainted and the whole place just held a lot of memories from my youth that I didn’t particularly enjoy especially after my high school boyfriend and I had just broken up. I was fine with leaving it all behind and I had found a new home at college.

And when my grandparents passed away, their house was torn down. I did one last walk through – but I wasn’t sad about saying goodbye to it. My grandparents weren’t there anymore and the last years they were there were painful and nothing at all like the memories I had created as a kid.

I walk into my other grandparent’s home and I still feel my home. I take deep breaths and try to hold on to the feeling there. But after they’re gone, I don’t think it will feel like anything at all.

Because I’ve always made homes out of people. My family grew out of our childhood home, we were located hours and plane rides away from each other and it wasn’t the home that kept us all together anymore. I feel at home with them, no matter where I am. And even at college, I tried to live in my house after everyone had left for summer and graduated – but the people were my home, not that house.

When I move out of a place (and I have moved out of quite  a few places for a 25 year old), I stare at the empty rooms and I feel sad. But as soon as I am together with my people in my next new adventure, I don’t really feel a nostalgia or need to be back in that old place.

I have no attachment to where I am because no matter where I go I can visit one of those important people and feel at home again.

apartment cabinet chair contemporary
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
PostGrad

July Recap

I guess summer is just destined to fly by because I can’t even believe August is almost here. July was everything I wanted and more! I got to spend so much time with my nieces and nephew who live far away and we went on our first trip in a looooong time. Here’s a recap of my July!

Favorite show: Queer Eye

Favorite memory: Going on the boat with my nieces and nephew (and Kaya’s first time on the boat!)

Favorite place: Vancouver

Favorite meal: Alllll about the Macho Matcha ice cream at Perverted in Vancouver

Favorite Instagram: Being open about instagram discouragement

Favorite Tweet: Sharing this shot of Vancouver

Favorite book: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Favorite blog post: How I’m feeling about moving in together 6 months later!

Favorite collaboration: Loving the look and quality of my Sudio headphones.

Tell me one memory you have from July in the comments below!

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