Surviving Year 23

I’ve probably started this post about a million times but each time I delete the entire thing. It’s a lot of pressure to write something good after being MIA for 9 months! I honestly just can’t decide what to write about first. I wish I could write lists of all my awesome, exciting life—full of trips, fun times with friends, barely any work at all, and lots of free time to knit/watercolor/write/etc. These adventures and free time activities have been few and far between (although don’t get me wrong – they aren’t completely nonexistent!). 

I’ve read an insane number of Buzzfeed articles about why being 23 years old is the worst. I must admit that in the past few months, I’ve agreed with these articles 100%. My days often resemble Groundhog Day when my alarm goes off and for multiple days in a row, I spend 8:00am-9:15pm in Gordon’s library. Although it is convenient to work and take grad classes in the same building, I have to takes breaks to walk down the halls and back, often alternating between the bathrooms on the 3^rd and 4^th floor for a change of scenery during these 9+ hours.

Although I feel like I live at Gordon and that my brain is going to explode with information, I can be thankful that I will be done with my classes in May (ahhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!).  I can also be grateful for roommates who know not to bother me when I come home at 9:30pm and I literally can’t. talk. at. all. because my brain literally hurts from work and homework and classes and talking to people all day (the struggles of being a front desk person aka I have to be friendly). The only thing that resets my exhausted brain is when I get into bed at night and listen to my Harry Potter audiobook while I knit (seriously, can you think of anything better than this?!?!). Usually I have to stop myself from listening into the wee hours of the morning because I try to go to bed before 11pm although ideally I should be sleeping at like 9:30pm.

I know that I’m learning so much at my job and in my classes and I’m hoping and praying that this will help me in the future. It’s easy to imagine an ideal life with free time to do everything I want to do, weeknights when I could see friends, and money to buy all of the things that I want to buy (although this is just me being greedy and an online shopaholic and it’s probably for the best that I now have to limit myself). I mostly wish that traveling was free because then I could visit all of the places and friends I want to see.

Anyways. These Buzzfeed articles though… I feel like they are so accurate and the second that I think I have a direction and I’m cruising on a path with determination with the certainty that I’m doing the right thing… BAM. I suddenly have no idea what I’m doing or why the heck I even started this Master’s degree, etc etc etc. I don’t want to just survive my 23^rd year in the place (and by “this place” I mean Earth) but ideally appreciate this time in my life even though there are days when it’s so hard to appreciate and just accept all the unknowns. My planner self can’t even deal with all the mystery and I go back and forth between searching for new jobs/apartments but then there are also days when I close my eyes and try to find that peace of mind and know that it will all work out. These verses have been the most encouraging and calm my anxious mind when I can’t stop worry about the future:

Psalm 139:9-10: “If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  

Here’s to hoping that I can continue to remember these verses when I feel lost in a pile of to-do lists, class readings, and work-related woes, all while making the rest of year 23 better than the first half (don’t worry – there will hopefully be a little less whining on my part :)