I went on Facebook…

…and my news feed has definitely changed.

Let me explain.

About five or six years ago, I was in college okay. The news feed had just come out and for a while it was plagued with self-proclaimed stalkers, attention seekers — emo’s. Then as time passed, it turned into the place to go to find out where the party was at, who was hooking up with who and bouts of e-drama where both parties would e-dropkick each other in the e-face if either set foot on the other’s profile. Further down the road it matured a bit with job offerings, career starts and pursuits of even higher education. However, now, this is what my Facebook news feed has evolved to…

…babies, babies — people popping out babies. Weddings? Apparently a lot of my college friends are at that point in their lives where they are getting married. Food…as if anything I could type right now would make that any more remotely normal.

When did I pass that time in my life where Facebook became less of a social experiment and more of the June edition of Better Homes and Gardens magazine? I am pretty sure this happened overnight because why else would I be in such shock? And why do I now have an overwhelming feeling to get married, have a baby, take a picture of the breakfast-in-bed my husband made for me AND post it all on Facebook. You know that expression that old people use…the one that ends in, “or whatever you kids are doing now a days?” Maybe this is what us kids are doing now a days.

I feel like I’m in the 2001 remake of Josie and the Pussycats (the one with Rachel Leigh Cook and Rosario Dawson and Tara Reid?) *crickets* Oh come on! None of you know what I’m talking about, do you? *sigh* I suppose you should google it…no one understands me!

I can’t have been the only one who has seen/greatly enjoyed this film!

Anyway, I feel like my friends and Facebook are trying to brain wash me. Like, this is what your life is supposed to be like at this moment. Apparently I’m at that age where you get hitched and start a family…you make or eat really good food? Maybe I missed that train or perhaps was too busy doing everything else wrong. Is anyone reading this feel like maybe we’re on the same boat here?

I’m sure our lives are what we make of them and maybe I was being brain washed into thinking that perhaps I am missing something by not having had my wedding or my first child. But I can assure you, these things haven’t totally been written off in my life. And who knows? Maybe by the time I get around to doing these things, there will still be a select few who are still in the same place I am…the last of the good ones.

Tiny Moments

I was feeling a bit pensive the other day.

I was driving through my old home town and for some strange reason tiny moments of my past came flooding into my mind. It’s strange being back in that place and how it all seems so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

During college, anytime I would come home, it’d be just a little less comforting every summer. It started feeling less like home and more like an increasingly distant friend; one that I knew very well at first but then lost touch with as time passed.

And in many ways, everything is the same…the same buildings, the same people. As I drove through I remembered when 7-11 used to be a Sugarcreek and Shurfine used to be Jubilee and how the new Government Center was once the town’s old nursing home. And how the monuments of the town used to look so much bigger when I was younger; they’ve now rusted and are a little less handsome than when I was growing up.

I can remember spending days and nights driving around hoping to score…anything really. There would be days when I would be home but gone for weeks at a time cruising back roads and side streets with my friends. And as I was driving on the same pavement I was taken back to those days. How reckless were we? To this day, I don’t know how were never caught or stopped by the fuzz. So many memories; like the woods we would escape to light bonfires for our underage drinking excursions…or the memorial on the side of the road marking the place one of my classmates had died two years after graduation. Or the shed where I told my high school crush I’d call him back in a few days — 6 years later, I still haven’t called. Or the meandering dips and curves from the midnight drives I would take with a guy I thought I had fallen madly in love with.

Everything about that place played out in my mind like a film reel of tiny moments in my head; snapshots of a girl I used to be and all of her dreams and aspirations. It’s nice, sometimes, to be reminded of the past and how a lot of the decisions I made brought me to where I am now. I think someday when I’m looking out over blue waters of the far away coast of my new home, I may look back and miss this.

I’m glad I can visit now and again…even if it is as an old friend just passing through.

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I am in a weird place lately…

Not like physically. I’m not just like in a dark alley somewhere or ramdomly standing in a corn field in Nebraska like “what’s up Nebraska?”

No, I just feel like my life has kind of plateaued. Just thinking about it, I came up with this sort-of graph in my head to illustrate…

7 years ago, graduated high school = up two.

3 years ago, graduated college = up seven **including negative three per the thousands of dollars I put myself in debt for a degree which is seemingly useless**

2 years ago, completed a year of AmeriCorps VISTA service = up two.

1.75 years ago, unemployment = down three.

1.5 years ago, started my career at the company in which I am currently employed = up five.

1.5 months ago, was promoted = up five.

Two weeks ago, no change. One week ago, no change. Today, no change.

Maybe I am just being silly or coming down from the high of my promotion. But on top of that, stuff at home has kind of gone sour. Work has become weird — I am in the middle of a transition to another part of my department. Money is just being itself and complicating everything as normal.

Just this past weekend I was laying in bed, browsing apps on my phone when the questions surfaced…

This question mark has a face in it…mind officially blown.

…who am I?

And what am I doing with my life? Where am I supposed to be headed? How did I even know that Nebraska had a lot of corn fields?

I am not even sure. And I am finding myself just…lost? Maybe.

Idk. Perhaps I have just have to wait it out. I imagine that this has happened before, this cannot be the first time…right? *sigh*

I wish I had a different tone to end this with…perhaps a last note about what I might learn from this or a joke even. But I suppose I will just finish here, leaving you all feeling a little weird, maybe a bit perplexed, and definitely tempted to google how much acreage of corn field Nebraska really has.

xoxo

Should have read the small print…

Oh hey there.

Hey, so sorry for totally going all dashboard confessional on you all today after like, months of no updates. It’s just that everything is coming out like word vomit and I figured I would piece it all together for you before the e-janitor comes to clean it all up with that sawdust looking stuff (oh, you know what I’m talking about right…right?!).

Anyway…about a week after my birthday, at the end of March, I interviewed for a promotion within my department. And yes, I did get it. I had fulfilled a goal I had set for myself about 6 months of working. I was ecstatic and found out that I was staying on my original team…it honestly could not have been any better.

Just a pawn in the grand scheme of things…

About a month ago, word spread that management had decided to do some rocking of the boat…long story short, I have been told that I am relocating within the department to do a job that is completely different than what I have been doing for about two years.

I am trying to stay positive about it but I can’t help but shake the feeling of having to start all over again, ya know. And it bothers me a little bit that my job and I are like chess pieces being played with by management. It’s kinda like I am being traded like a baseball card…it feels that way anyway.

I don’t know. Perhaps I am overreacting or overthinking it. Everyone I have talked to says that they think I will be great on the other side. I guess we will just have to see.