10 Years Later: High School

A few weeks ago, in my newsletter, I wrote about how my 10 year high school reunion was coming up. Can you believe that? I find it hard to believe that I graduated 10 years ago--and of course, that means I graduated from college 6 years ago. 

I feel very old saying, "I blinked and it was gone." In many ways, I still feel very young. But some days, like when my knees hurt or I'm so tired I let my son watch his Elmo DVD for the fifth time and lie on the couch, I feel positively ancient. 

This all got me thinking though: what really has changed about me in those 10 years? 

• I went blonde. 
• I got a pixie cut. 
• I dyed my hair red about 100 times. 
• I grew my hair out. 
• I cut it short again. Repeat 4 times. 
• I gained weight. 
• I lost weight. 
• I gained weight again. 
• I started a fashion blog. 
• I quit my fashion blog. 
• I started a lifestyle blog. 
• I quit that lifestyle blog. 
• I started this blog. 
• I started Twitter. 
• I joined Instagram. 
• Pinterest happened. 
• I started dating Danny. 
• I got engaged to Danny. 
• I married Danny. 
• I had a baby. 
• I got a bunch of jobs. 
• I quit a bunch of jobs. 
• I did way more internships that I ever thought would be necessary. 
• I quit a lot of internships, too. 
• I worked a lot of early mornings in coffee shops. 
• I spent hours and hours and hours reading about blogging. 
• I got a job I love. 
• I made a lot of friends through blogging. 
• Made a lot of creepy enemies too! 

And that's all I can think of just off the top of my head. And that's just the things I've done. 

It's hard to always make a list of the ways I've changed over the years. I sometimes feel like I am still that 18-year-old girl, but I also know that she and I are two very different people. I think she'd be really disappointed by where I am--and also a little relieved that I'm not an absolute failure. I'd love to tell her how great the next 5 years will be for her, and really, that makes up for the 3 years that follow that time span ("the bad times"). I wish I could tell my high school self that things will be ok, I don't need to develop the Type A personality I currently have, and that it's ok to relax, and have fun, and you don't have to work 100% of the time all the time. 

What have you learned since graduating high school? 

Let's Talk About that #2006vs2016 Thing

It's crazy to look at pictures of me in 2006. I was 17/18, in high school, wearing bad puffy jackets with faux fur trim and clutching gigantic Slurpee cups. (In my defense, you could refill that XTREME Slurpee cup for only $1.09. Really.) It's not difficult to say that 2006 me was a different person that 2016 me. 

2006 me still thought that things would be easy once I graduated high school and went to college. I would keep every single one of my best friends (uh duh, of course!); I would become a different person of my choosing in college; I would become a high powered editor at a fashion magazine; my skin would suddenly become "adult" (a myth that is still repeated to poor girls like me with crappy skin to this day) and I'd look great. 

2016 me knows lots of things that 2006 me didn't know. But neither one of us is better than the other. 

2006 me struggled with self-esteem, just like 2016 me, just in different ways. 

Looking back, I wish 2006 me had known that she was just as good as all of her friends, that she didn't have to have boys pay attention to her to be important, that she didn't have to be embarrassed that she worked a part-time job to pay for her car insurance and clothes. I wish she'd known that she was pretty great on her own, that she deserved people who wanted to spend time with her, and that she could have found different, potentially better friends. (No offense high school friends. 2006 me certainly wasn't a party to be around, admittedly.) 

I wonder what 2006 me would think looking at me now. I think she would be shocked and appalled that 2016 me lives in the same boring town and goes to the same boring places, but she'd probably also be terrified that I have a baby. A real life human baby that I take care of, alongside a dog and a husband. She'd probably also feel I'd sold out a little bit by working in marketing (gotta do what ya gotta do, baby girl!) and would be appalled that I wasn't published by now. (2006 me had some very unrealistic expectations for the publishing industry and her own writing output). 

To me, the 2006 vs 2016 hashtag isn't really about looks though. Do I look different than in 2006? Duh. I've aged 10 years; I've had a baby; I survived college and the terrible economy and working as a receptionist. My hair is somehow darker and more gray. I weigh more. I wear a lot more make up. But hey, at least I've learned to work the selfie angle. The most important thing is that I feel differently than I did in 2006. I feel like I've grown up. Sometimes I worry that I feel too much like a teenager still, but looking at pictures of high school me makes me realize that, realistically, I'm so much more adult than I think I am. I'm basically a grown up. As if it wasn't obvious before. 

Tell me: what's different between 2006 you and 2016 you? What would you think of each other? 

The Best Advice I've Ever Received

Sometimes, people give me advice when I don't ask for it. We've all had that experience, right? I'm going about my business, I share something about my life, and bam! Advice! How I should be living my life or things I need to do to right what is clearly wrong with me. 

Sometimes, it's bad advice. Sometimes, it's really bad actually. An example: being told I just need to find little ways to cheer up when I have postpartum depression is very bad advice. 

However, sometimes people give really good advice. Like really good advice. I thought I'd gather up the best advice I've ever received and share it. 

1. "You make mistakes and you learn. Otherwise, how will you know what to do in the future?"

The only reason I know right from wrong, really, is because I've done wrong in the past and learned from it. When my mom was driving me to the hospital to be induced, she told me this: "you're going to make mistakes." It's really freeing to be told that and to go forward with it: to know that I was going to do things the wrong way for Forrest, but that ultimately, it will be okay. I can make mistakes, and then I can move forward with new information to do better next time. 

2. Use Psychology Today to find a therapist or counselor. 

This is a piece of advice I actually got from a true crime/murder podcast. Seriously, I'm not joking. One of the best things I've learned from my favorite podcast, My Favorite Murder, is PsychologyToday. It's an easy way to find therapists and counselors in your area. For me, the process of finding a new, or available, counselor is super overwhelming--but it's so easy to just search online. Best piece of advice I've ever gotten from Karen and Georgia--besides staying sexy and not getting murdered. 

3. You don't know what you don't know.

This is another piece of advice from a podcast. I started listening to Food Psych, a podcast about body positivity, body image, and eating disorders. "You don't know what you don't know" is a phrase that's often repeated. Sometimes, when people talk about their food issues, it goes back to childhood--I know it does for me too. This can have a number of problems including: 1) making your parents feel guilty for things they did (like not letting you eat sugar during the week), 2) making you become paranoid about the choices you make for your child, and 3) making you feel like it's your parents fault. Realistically, though, Christy, the woman behind Food Psych, always says, "You don't know what you don't know." Your parents did the best they could with the information they had, basically, and unless they were being purposefully abusive, which is rarely, it's not something that you can consider faulty. Eventually, you have to let go of being afraid or feeling blameful and accept that you don't know what you don't know--but once you do, you can do better. 

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

The Benefits of Being Treated Like an Adult At Work

This post originally appeared on my old lifestyle blog, Ellipsis, over 2 years ago. This is a minor rewrite. If you'd like to see the original, click here. 

Sometimes, I feel like I've tricked people into thinking I'm an adult. The amount of responsibility--for other people's companies, for their public images--I'm handed every day is kind of astounding, despite the fact that I feel like I should still be answering to someone. And yet, sometimes--when there are dishes in the sink, or the stairs need vacuuming, or I've run out of clean socks--I find myself wishing I could opt out, have someone else be the grown up and take care of that. 

I'm a little obsessed by age--acting my age, acting like a grown up, acting like a kid. There are times where I feel like I really shouldn't be 27--I feel about 14 or 15, tops. And I'm not the only millennial that feels that way. Even though I have a child now, I still often feel like I'm not the adult in any given situation. I look to other adults to help me out, more often than not. 

I recently read an article about the benefits of treating employees like, well, adults. The United States in particular has fallen into the trap of treating employees like students and/or children: dress codes, strict times to show up and leave, strong rules of how to do things, specific procedures, and limited creative freedom. Boooooring. Isn't that supposed to be the benefit of leaving school? You start getting to work and act like an adult? 

I've started to wonder if my own inability to see myself as an adult is tied to the fact that my jobs, up until two years ago, all treated me as if I was a child. 

At one of my last jobs before my current one, my boss had a rule that I had to tell someone when I was stepping into the bathroom for even a minute. About 9 times a day I was telling my boss and/or one of my coworkers that I was going to the bathroom, and they were doing the same thing. It was obnoxious and embarrassing. What kind of boss really needs to know when I'm taking a 45 second break to run to the restroom?

I know I'm not alone in having stories like that. It seems like workplaces overwhelmingly lean towards treating employees like overgrown babies who need a lot of rules to do basic work. And, surprise! Research shows that when you treat employees like little bitty babies, they are act more irresponsibility. 

As well, treating employees like children allows bad employees to fly underneath the radar. We've all know a coworker for followed all the rules--showed up on time, followed procedures to the letter--but never actually did any work. Those kind of employees thrive in environments where the procedure matters more than the outcome--and being a "good employee" is all about following the basic policies. 

This article explains the entire idea nicely: 

What works is focusing on results. If your employees are nonexempt, you do have to pay them by the hour for their work (and pay overtime, when applicable), but if they are exempt employees (that is, professionals or managerial or outside sales workers), let them be grownups. Set expectations. If problems come up, address the problems. If their work is otherwise good, who cares if they check Facebook eight times per day?

There isn't any real, concrete reason about why this has happened. With the rise of the Internet & the abundance of smart phones, I think employers have grown increasingly concerned about not paying their employees for downtime. They focus on the minute-by-minute action of their employees days, instead of seeing the big picture -- did the project get done? Was the work good?

In the end, you get employees who resent their bosses & act like kids. 

As millennials increasingly enter the workforce, I think we'll see employers re-evaluating their policies when it comes to how they treat their employees. As it is, millennials as a generation feel very stuck by where we are--most of us moved back in with our parents right out of college & some still do until they can afford their own places. Millennials are resisting buying new cars and homes. (I do love that these articles are trying to find a reason for this. Here's the reason, guys: most new jobs are part-time & do not offer very competitive wages, nor do they offer many benefits. We aren't buying homes and cars because, duh, we don't have the money for them, plain & simple. Paying student loans on part-time wages and trying to buy a car or a home would be beyond financially stupid.)

And while us millennials struggle to feel like adults (often because we are being reduced to feeling like children because of our living situations, our difficulty finding good paying jobs, and the media's increasing obsession with making us sound like the laziest generation ever), no one is ever happy being treated like a petulant child. 

For the first time, I work at a job where I am treated like a competent adult. Ultimately, it doesn't matter when I show up or how I do my work or how many times I run to the bathroom; what matters is if my work is good, if I get it done on time, and if I am a nice person to everyone around me. Easy-peasy. The feeling of satisfaction I get from my work simply because I'm treated like the adult I was taught to be is astounding.
 

Being a grown up is hard. There's no reason to make it any harder by treating people like children & then wondering why they act like children. As far as I'm concerned, I feel like I should still be 15--but that being said, I know I'm really an adult and I appreciate when others have confidence in my abilities.

The Truth About Losing a Passion

"I used to be really into photography," I say. I'm talking to a relatively new coworker and, even though the conversation continues without a hitch, I find myself drifting back to this. I say it a lot; I used to be really into fashion; I used to run a fashion blog; I used to be very into makeup; i used to be, I used to be, I used to be. 

It's been 7 months since I really had time for hobbies. I haven't been to the gym, gone running, scrapbooked, or written in my journal in 7 months. I just have more important things to do. Make up is a necessity now (and I praise whoever invented concealer, the beauty blender, and contour palettes) and so is clothing (one that I hate with a passion). I take pictures of Forrest and that's about it.

It's not that I don't enjoy these things anymore; I just don't feel passionate about them like I used to. I can still peruse the make up aisles forever, but I know I won't be posting reviews or anything else. I still use my camera, but it's less about getting better at photography and more about just taking some quick photos.  

There are no more pictures of stealing cups of coffee for me, or journals beautifully laid out on my desk. I drink my coffee cold more mornings and my journal sits on my desk expectantly. Right now, I'm wearing Forrest in the Ergo while I write this and I have about 20 minutes to write before it's time to play and roll and read books (all of which are super fun, admittedly). 

I miss being passionate about things, though.  

There is part of me that realizes I'm never going to be super into photography or make up or anything ever again. I'll probably find new hobbies, I'm sure, but I've moved on from the old me. I'll probably never run a fashion blog again. And that's ok, I don't need to. 

Sometimes, I feel embarrassed about how different I am from the person I used to be: I used to be thin and put together; I had hobbies and passions; my house was relatively clean and nice. But I have to remind myself that people change--I've changed. I'm just not the person I used to be anymore, and that's ok. I have other things to do now, things that are just as fulfilling and fun as photography, fashion, and make up ever were. 

I Promise Not to Wish It Away Anymore

I told myself I would take tons of great pictures of Forrest. As soon as he is sitting up, I thought, I'll be able to take him outside for photo shoots all the time. Well, the sitting up came later than I expected. The first three months of his life passed both agonizingly slowly and insanely fast. I blinked and suddenly he can ride in the seat of the shopping cart and he can hold and feed himself teething biscuits. 

He went from being a barely sentient lump to having likes and dislikes, favorite toys and songs and sounds. This is exactly the stage I hoped for when he was first born. 

And yet (of course there's a "and yet" here), I find myself wishing I hadn't spent those first few months wishing, wishing, wishing for the time to go faster, for him to grow up. I still find myself having those wishes: I wish he could sit up; I wish he could talk and tell me what's wrong; I wish his stomach could hold more milk at once; I wish he napped better; I wish he slept through the night. 

I wanted him to grow up... and he did. And (here's another), I wish I hadn't rushed it. 

As difficult as they were, I miss the days I spent on the couch with him, holding him as he slept, feeding him bottle after bottle, two hours on the dot without fail. I miss his sleepy faces and accidental smiles. I miss being able to swaddle him and lie with him in bed. I wish I'd taken advantage of that--to watch movies, to read, to whatever--instead of wishing he would get bigger, faster. 

On Saturday, I struggled to get a 9 month size onesie over his head. He ate pumpkin, banana, and oatmeal for breakfast. We played and read a book and sang a song. We went to Eugene and he rode in a shopping cart. I took his picture and I thought, I can't believe he's so big. 

Suddenly, I realized that time was drifting past me, whether I felt like it or not: time had gone by and I'd wished it. I don't have any professional photos of Forrest as a baby--only ones taken on my iPhone and a few vague attempts of my own. I dragged Danny outside to take pictures I'd been imagining in my head for months. 

"He's only little for so long," I said, very early in Forrest's life. While I believed it, I also, in the back of my mind, couldn't wait for him to just get bigger. 

I look at him now and all I can think is, just a few more days of this. A few more days before you crawl, before you stand up, before you walk over to me, before you talk. I can't wait to experience every day with Forrest; I can't wait to hear everything he has to say. But I also want just a few more nights cuddling, a few more long naps on the couch, a few more days where he refuses to hold his own bottle as he eats. 

Just a few more days with my squishy baby before he becomes a rambunctious little boy. 

An Ode to Amazon & the Weirdest Stuff I've Ordered

On Amazon Prime Day, a day that will live in infamy for its hilariously bad deals (it really was like the clearance section at TJ Maxx), I ordered a highchair and bra extenders. In terms of Amazon purchases, these aren't all together the weirdest things to order: I got the highchair of my choice for Forrest for $70 cheaper than usual (and $90 cheaper than Target) and I got bra extenders because, well, you know. 

It got me thinking about when I started ordering from Amazon and what I ordered... and what I've ordered over the years. 

I'm probably a bit of a strange bird in terms of my generation: I wasn't big into online shopping until probably 2010 or 2011. I never trusted online deals or any particular websites and in retrospect, this is probably why I was so good at not spending all my money immediately when I was younger (although I was very good at that early on). 

However, once I got into the swing of things on Amazon, I really went for it. Here's a run down. 

2008

In my first Amazon order ever, I purchased a workbook and laboratory manual to accompany my Deutsch: Na klar! An Introductory Germany Course textbook. Obviously, I was prepped to study German. Hilariously, the workbook I received also featured the teacher's answer section in the back, which I used because I'm not dumb and I'm a bit lazy when it comes to workbooks. 

2009

A few months later, I ordered over $200 worth of books, including Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Young Lonigan. I remember this term of my school career and I remember it well, because I was really tired of reading old white guy literature by the end of it. Thankfully, I also ordered a copy of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl to break up the monotony. 

2010

Another year, another $200+ on books. This was the year I got really into sociology, obviously. A sample of the books I read include A New Look at Black Families, How Does it Feel to be a Problem, and the Rich Get Rich and the Poor Get Prison. As a side note, I'm currently rereading How Does it Feel to be a Problem and it's so good; it's only $10. Buy it. 

2011

This was the year I started to really get into Amazon. I ordered my last bundle of school books (sample: Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition), but I placed five other orders of non-school books and other weirdo stuff, including my camera. A link no longer exists for it, but I also ordered a bunch of bulk camera lens wipes. 

2012

I am not a night shopper and I don't usually make impulse decisions. But in my two paltry Amazon orders of 2012, I made two intensely impulsive decisions. On one of Danny's visits home, I bought Katamari Damacy for his Playstation 3. This game is essentially a game version of taking acid and flying to Tokyo, then trying to navigate your way around mid-trip. I also ordered the stupid expensive Lord of the Rings extended edition blu-rays because, duh, Danny and I needed them.

2013

2013 was the year I got Amazon Prime and it made a huge impact on my life. I ordered a planner that I literally have no recollection of using, a really horrible novel that I read on my honeymoon, books about emotional eating, and a copy of this awful movie for Danny. 

2014

In 2014, I hit my Amazon stride. Up until 2014, I'd been placing between 2 and 6 orders on Amazon. This year, I upped the ante and placed a total of 15 orders. It's almost embarrassing. This was also the year I started clawing my way out of the deep, dark depression that had encompassed my life in 2013 and early 2014, and in some ways, my purchases mirror that. 

I ordered the Venture Bros, a bunch of Kong toys for Remus, 21 Jump Street, TWO of these jump drives (Danny knows why), and a ton of Quest bars. Between these seemingly normal-if-disparate things, I ordered a ton of phone cases, a case for my Kindle, what feels like waaaay too many Kindle books, and a lot of chevron print stuff. 

2015

Don't judge me: in the first 7 months of 2015, I've placed more orders than I did for 2014. I don't leave my house anymore, guys! I'm a bloated, miserable, whiny, pregnant mess. What can I say? 

I've ordered Tummy Drops that made me sicker, Mama Butter which smells good but does nothing, tiny baby glasses,  this weird movie that is apparently part of a series, an embarrassing amount of scrapbooking supplies*, and stuff for my baby shower. I also ordered vitamin B6, prenatal vitamins (which I ended up trading for gummies from Target), at least 20 Kindle books, and another heap of iPhone covers. What can I say, I'm a collector for those iPhone covers. 

*If you're looking for cheap scrapbooking stuff, seriously check Amazon before going to a physical store. 

---

In many ways, tracing my Amazon purchases is like tracing my life. Everything in my world revolved around school for a long time. Post-school, it was cameras, GRE study books, and the occasional movie. In the year(s), I was depressed it was movies, weird video games, books to help with my depression (that didn't help), and gifts. In the past few years, I've ordered gifts, things that revolve around my hobbies (scrapbooking, reading, planners), things that revolve around my unending obsession with my body and its size (weight loss books, more books by Geneen Roth, a Fitbit, Quest bars), and alas, baby stuff. Enough baby stuff to build a tiny mountain. 

I can trace the crests and valleys of my life, the highs and lows, the classes I loved and hated, the months where I most wanted to curl into a ball and disappear. It's strange what an online purchase history can reveal--and what it can make me feel. 

Sorry, I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

I have recently noticed a disturbing trend: when I'm shopping, or walking through a store, and encounter a strange situation (a ladder across an aisle, an employee stocking something in the way of everyone), people tend to follow my lead or do what I do (carefully tiptoe over the ladder, sneak past the employee). 

I have never, in my life, been a leader. I do not have the qualities necessary. I'm extremely good at streamlining my own day, acting in a manner that is extremely disciplined and specific, but I'm really terrible at explaining how to organize to other people, or how to do anything, actually. I'm bad at giving directions. I'm a bad leader. I just am. I have many strengths, but leading others is not one of them. 

And yet, when approaching a Starbucks the other day, I decided to awkwardly stand in what I hoped looked like an "I'm next" line format. I then found other people lining up behind me. "No," I wanted to say, "I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just standing here. I could be wrong. Do not follow my lead!"

Along with being a poor leader, I've always assumed I exude a feeling of "I'm totally clueless"-ness to other people, especially while out in public. I have walked into doors, nearly knocked over displays, and generally shown myself to be very, very bad at carrying myself with confidence and a sense of assuredness. The idea that someone else sees me standing directionless in a Starbucks and thinks, yes, this person knows what they're doing! is shocking to me. 

I've been noticing more and more that I don't feel quite as useless deciding what to do as I used to. While standing in line at the grocery store on Saturday (a surprisingly busy Saturday morning), a woman was pulled into a newly opened line and, as she moved, an elderly man tried to cut in front of me. A few years ago, I would have let him cut in line, standing awkwardly behind him. Instead, I moved up and tried to look confident in my decision to cut him off. I might have absolutely no idea what I'm doing standing in a line to buy bananas and bread, but I do know that I'd already been standing in line for a few minutes... and he hadn't been.

I don't want to say I'm more confident than I used to be. But in recent months (and especially since being pregnant), I've stopped being willing to let other people push me around simply because I didn't know what to say to stop it from happening. In terms of people following my lead, I wonder if this comes off as confidence in my decisions.

I need some kind of physical disclaimer that explains, despite my apparent confidence, that I actually have no idea if this is where the line starts, or how to order coffee, or if this outfit is appropriate, because while I look like I know what I'm doing, I really don't, but that doesn't mean you can cut in front of me, either.