Tag: family

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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PostGrad

What’s Making You Unhappy?

Something just isn’t quite right…but I’m not sure what it is. Do you ever look at your life because something needs to change, but you can’t figure out what it is?

It seems like a lot of good things are lined up for me. I’ve had a lot of time with my family, a lot of fun on the weekends, and have been working on bettering myself. But then there seem to be twinges of things that are not just going right – but which of them are creating so much of an impact that it’s making me unhappy?

I’ve let a lot of projects die lately. I was saying yes to as many things as I could, I was writing in a gratitude journal, I was trying to be mindful. And I don’t think those things were making huge differences in my life, but ditching them could be behind my unhappiness.

Complacency has also been a huge struggle for me lately. I have been trying to get out of my appearance rut, but haven’t been able to change anything in my daily routine. I spend a lot of time wishing the days away and then sitting on my couch and watching Netflix all evening.

Even when I get to the weekend, I have ended up doing a lot of things by myself recently and occupying my own time. I’m normally all for it, but I had been pushing myself out of my anti-social box lately and now I feel like I’m walking in circles trying to make myself happy all by myself.

None of these are huge problems. I can’t point to one and say that it’s truly making a dent into my happiness. I guess it could be all these small pebbles creating one big mountain I can’t climb. Something just isn’t quite right, but I’m not sure what it is. What’s making you unhappy?

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Relationships

Moving In Together – 6 Months In

After about a year and a half of dating, my boyfriend and I moved in together and I wrote about my first impressions here.

Leading up to it, I wasn’t nervous at all. I was excited to be in one place, no more traveling back and forth to see each other and leading separate lives. Everything would be more convenient and it just felt like the next step. But the day we moved in, I freaked. The weight of all that could go wrong fell on me.

We’ve now been living together for six months and a lot has happened. We got a dog, we moved past the newness of living together, we’ve settled. We’ve had friends over, we’ve stayed in, we’ve fought, we’ve enjoyed our time together, and we’ve learned to give each other space.

It all really just happens naturally if you’re not forcing it. Nothing in life is rainbows and butterflies. You’re going to load the dishwasher wrong and he’s going to throw your dry clean only pants in the dryer and the dog is going to chew up all of your socks. Though social media doesn’t quite show those things, that’s just the way life is.

It’s basically nothing like the photo I used for this blog post. It’s not perfect, but that’s okay.

Six months in and we feel very comfortable in our little apartment together with our little family. It feels right for right now, but does have me thinking about the future a lot. Being together is great, but life has other factors and questions to consider. Do we want to live here forever? No, but when can we move? Are we on the right path for our careers? Can we follow those paths together? When’s the time to make next steps? Do we have to get engaged soon? Married? AH!

Everything is moving slow right now and I kind of just want it to speed up. But that’s no way to live and I’m way too uncertain about most of life’s decisions lately to be able to hop skip and jump to the future. All I can do is try to live in the moment and know that the here and now in our relationships and our little home is great.

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Photo by Stokpic on Pexels.com

 

PostGrad

Adopting A Dog – Initial Thoughts

Two months ago I wrote about how we adopted our little monster named Kaya. I introduced her to you and told you the backstory of deciding to get her. So now that we’ve had her for a few months, I wanted to give you all an updated!

I have to admit, the first month with Kaya was so hard. All of our conversations were about her and our relationship definitely went on the back burner. She was chewing things up, being a little too rowdy, and taking up most of our time. As someone who has openly admitted to not wanting kids because I selfishly like my time, this was pretty tough for me.

I don’t want to equate getting a dog to having a child, I KNOW that there is a huge difference. But they are very similar in a lot of ways. Your puppy will wake you up in the middle of the night, you’ll worry about them all day when you’re away from them, they will have accidents and ruin some of your things. They will take up MOST of your time.

I wasn’t loving the experience of having a dog, even though I had wanted one of my own for the past 5 years.

But as we all settled in to our home together, Kaya calmed down a lot. She stopped getting too wild when trying to play and stopped chewing on my stuff. She adapted to waiting for us to wake up in the morning and does so well at the dog park. After the first month of basically disliking this dog, now I love her to death.

And I’m back to equating having a dog to having a child. I now understand how giving up most of your life is worth that love you receive back. Adopting a dog should never be a light decision, it was a huge change for us, but our little family feels so complete now!

PostGrad

Yes, It’s True, I Don’t Want Kids

When I say I don’t want kids, everyone says: “you’ll change your mind!” or “you’re still young!” or “are you sure?”

Yes, I’m sure.

It’s one of the first things I told my boyfriend and reminded him of almost monthly to make sure he was okay with it too. Because I won’t change my mind, I really don’t want them.

If I’m being honest, it’s mostly because I’m selfish. I value my time, my sleep, my freedom, and the money I make to spend on my lifestyle. I know kids are great, I have nieces and a nephew who I love to spend time with and spoil, but I don’t have to dedicate my whole life to them. And I don’t want to do that with kids of my own.

Even adopting a dog has been a lot more responsibility than I had imagined for myself. I always vowed to never get a puppy because of the time and effort it takes. Luckily, we adopted my dog at 1 year old and potty trained – but she is still a lot to take!

Maybe (and this is a big MAYBE), when I’m 20 years older and feeling like my youth is spent, I would look into fostering or adopting. But that’s way down the road and not something I really need to put a lot of weight into right now.

I’m young and everyone expects women to have kids by their early thirties. For me, that’s less than 10 years away and a big N O. In the next 10 years I want to move out of state, I want to travel the world, I want to adopt another dog, maybe get married and maybe buy a house with chickens in the backyard. But I definitely don’t want kids.

They say my generation is opting out of having kids. If you do want them – that’s great! If you don’t – that’s also great! Make sure you have a plan for your future, that you discuss feelings with your significant other, and know that things can change. But always stick to your instincts. My generation has a lot of reasons to not have kids. We’re in debt. We haven’t even settled at a stable job yet. We can’t afford to buy a house. But the only reason I really need is that I just don’t want them.

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Photo by JÉSHOOTS on Pexels.com
PostGrad

May Recap

May flew by! My birthday is next week and I’m sure there will be more great things to come, but here is a recap of all of the things I’ve enjoyed the past month!

Favorite show: The Handmaid’s Tale.

Favorite memory: I’ve gotten to see my friends so much more this month so every day with them has been a great memory! The best is when I was asked to be a bridesmaid at my best friend’s wedding 🙂

Favorite place: Philadelphia, PA

Favorite meal: I’ve gotten sushi and a bubble tea from this sushi place near my work like twice a week this month lol.

Favorite Instagram: I love this photo of me and my boyfriend.

Favorite Tweet: I dug this selfie I posted.

Favorite book: The only book I read this month was 10 Things To Do Before I Die which I’ve read before and is okay.

Favorite blog post: This response to my 22 year old self.

Favorite collaboration: I love baths so this Queen V Bubble Bath was a huge winner for me!

What’s one of your favorite things from May?