ventures

I downloaded the Air BnB app recently and it was a mistake. I stumbled upon this tiny little tree house in Vermont in the picture above gave me the travel bug. It's a TREE HOUSE. that you can STAY IN. with a BED. and they serve you BREAKFAST. I about died.

That led me to the realization that I need to take a vacation. I never go anywhere... The whole work/life balance is more or less work/work/work/imminent death alone. I'm always baffled when people are like 'yeah I'll see you guys in a week! Headed to Florida/California/TREEHOUSE IN THE WOODS' and I'm like 'WHUT NOW!?' My family has never made time for a work/life balance cuz it made no sense and money wasn't ever there. It's not normal for me to take time off for ME. It took me figuring out I have 2 weeks of vacation time stored up cuz I NEVER TAKE A DAY OFF and it woke me up a little bit.

I just kinda want to get away and do stuff I wanna do. Then come back. Like visit Portland to visit the original Stumptown Coffee and eat lavender ice cream and maybe find Abi Porter so we can be best friends and basically be the MOST hipster I can be for a week without judgement. I want to vacation with friends but that is too hard to orchestrate - by the time it's planned out I'll have 80 more hours of vacation time stored up so I was thinking about doing a solo trip.

But really... is this a good idea? Is vacationing alone a sham? Has anyone ever vacationed alone? Is it a bad idea for a person like me? (me meaning... semi introverted)

THOUGHTS!

p.s. - yes. this post is tagged 'quarter life crisis' real life.
p.p.s. - I'm listening to so much Beyoncé right now. So. Much.

growing up

I didn't intend to write this... I thought of going with a funny one today for you guys. Then I got jury duty and my whole day changed. Barf.

We'll start with a tiny bit of history.

I stay pretty surface with almost everyone I know except my family. I've never really known how to navigate emotions and hard conversations with anything but bursting into tears and advanced avoidance skills. I complain a lot about not having friends and that comes from under developed social skills paired with being overly eager in the beginning stages of friendship.

I remember in being 8th grade and sitting with who I thought were my best friends in the world and the teacher asked each of us if our best friends were here. I was the only one who responded yes. The other two responded no pretty quickly. Inwardly I FLIPPED out. How did I know them so little all of a sudden? It was like I was talking to strangers. The friendship never made it to high school. This happened over and over and over again until I realized I could stop talking to people. Oh happy day! When things got a little too real I cut it off expertly. Granted, I hung out with the STUPIDEST people sometimes (probably to not have to delve and find quality people) but when I was done, I was done. They were idiots. I was pretty adamant about telling others about their stupidity.

How incredibly childish of me. Did I mention I was in college when a lot of this happened?? In reality I didn't know how to navigate relationships very well. I didn't realize this until TODAY.

I'm stubborn and opinionated and eager to please and still scared by my own emotions sometimes. Friends that I know are good people are becoming annoying and petty to me because while THEY are evolving and growing I am not. I haven't recognized growth in myself enough to navigate the evolution of relationships. I've never even had a close friend longer than a few years - it's usually after a couple years when the relationship changes and that's when I cut it off. How... have I not seen this?! It took me complaining to a friend to break the news to me that... hey we're growing up and maybe it's time to face the fact that this isn't an area of expertise for you (though I claim it is... WOMP), lay it bare and go from there. Instead of retreating, like I'm currently doing in one friendship, I should probably communicate more.

Pretty sure I thought friendship was sunshine and roses and sharing and secrets and hair braiding and hugs. A friendship IS a relationship - I've been holding the two apart for as long as I can remember. Having real conversations is admitting things aren't 100% rosy and that is a weird thing for me to face.

So I'm gonna try to... be a normal person and communicate even when it's uncomfortable. A lot of my life lessons lately have been surrounding communication and action. It. is. the. pits.

signs of wisdom

So as you know my hair is crazy town. It's this big curly mess of the tightest curls you've ever seen that tend to GLOM together to form one big puff of curl. In all honesty? It's amazing. Well, I got my hair cut a couple weeks ago because it needed it and I've never been happier. It's easy to style, I can literally get up, scrunch my hands through it, put a flower in it (which is quickly becoming my signature) and BAM. I'm ready to go!

I was styling my hair the other day, and by styling I mean lamenting over what color flower to wear, when suddenly I noticed something...

 MY FIRST GREY HAIR!  

And at 25 too! so young... and I found myself GIGGLING (it really doesn't take much) with delight. Grey hairs are a sign of wisdom... and aging... and I just have one. Flowing free. Next to all the other raven hairs. Bein' bold. It doesn't care.

I thought about pulling it out but the old wives tale, "you pull one grey hair two grow in its place," plagued me, but really? I kind of LOVE IT.

I'm the type of girl who is planning her 30th birthday (PARIS Y'ALL. PARIS.) and is excited to BE that grandma who totally leads a Zumba class at the fitness center and goes on cruises with her girlfriends every 3 months. I want to take aging by the horns and really embrace it! I think that's the only way you have fun in life. Plus I totally had my quarter life crisis earlier this year and it was SOOO legit. It's time to move on for reals.

Anyone else got grey hair(s)? Did you completely freak out orrrr did you post it on Twitter like I did? haha