Browsing Tag

20-Something

20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Sometimes I Miss Being a Sad, Drunken Twenty-Something

Sometimes I think my writing would be much more interesting if I were still a wandering soul.

I used to decry that as a confused early twenty-something my stresses prevented me from thinking creatively. Between the ages of 20 and 25 that I lived in Los Angeles, I did little to release my artistic passions. I was drowning in my self-made cocktail of existentialism and narcissism. Sick of hearing myself talk about my petty, but nonetheless troubling issues caused me to move to another city to “find myself”.

Which I did.

Now I’m boring.

I work from home, forget to change out of my pajamas and garden poorly.

I wouldn’t say that “I’ve figured it all out” though. Who ever does? In many ways, we’re ambling spirtis our entire lives; always searching, always learning and always changing.

However, I’m a far cry from the girl I was five years ago.

The girl at 23 didn’t know what she wanted in a career or in love. She thought she always knew herself, but for the first time (more…)

May 7, 2012 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Home is Wherever I’m With You

As of today, I officially moved into Geoff’s house.

When I tell friends this, they usually respond with, “Wow! Taking the big step! Are you excited or nervous?”

Because I feel neither, it confuses me when my friends ask this, but I guess it is a legitimate question. Moving into a boyfriend’s house is a big step, but for some reason I don’t view it that way. It just seems natural.

Considering I’ve been staying here almost every day since we first met, there is no fanfare for my official arrival into the house. Instead I have a pile of crap that needs to find a home in its new home.

As I sit here on his couch, a long, green mid-century couch that was oddly in the film Tree of Life, I look around and see very little that is mine because this is not my house. It is Geoff’s. He designed the house himself with his former long term girlfriend. The design and decor of the house doesn’t scream, “Geoff and former girlfriend!”, nor does it scream, “Just Geoff!” The design is minimal (more…)

February 1, 2012 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

This is Life at 28

I always knew that 28 was going to be a pivotal age for me.

When I still worked in Hollywood, 25 would be the age that the ball really started rolling career-wise, and 28 would be the age that I, for the lack of a lesser cheesy phrase, “made the big time”. I wasn’t sure what “making the big time” exactly entailed, but I knew it involved financial freedom and a certain amount of career notoriety that would prevent me from drinking at home alone and writing emo music lyrics on my mirror in marker.

Of course I never accounted for the fact that I would soon view my career path as repugnant as a public restroom on Venice Beach.

Well, both 25 and 28 were important ages, but not in the ways that I imagined they would be. At 25 I left the film business and moved to Austin and at 28 I left working 9-5 and went freelance. I also fell in love with an amazing person. I also started growing this cool Rogue-esque white patch in the front of my hair.

I’m halfway through my 28th year and (more…)

January 9, 2012 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Welcoming the End of the Quarter Life Crisis

2012 marks the last year of my twenties.

Previously, saying that made me collapse into a fit of inconsolable defeat. Once, on the phone with my father about my car being paid off when I’m 30, I fell to the floor during the middle of the conversation. All it took was me saying, “Well, when I’m 30…” and my brain processed that as someone taking a bat to the back of my knees. My father heard heaving gasps on the other line and waited for my two minute bawl fest to conclude before daring to continue the topic at hand.

I never thought I’d make it past 29. Not because I have a craving for horse tranquilizers or a death wish obsession with Kurt Cobain, but because it seemed nearly impossible to imagine a life past that. My brain simply would shut down when thinking about my 30s. Or maybe, much like the Mayans, my internal calendar simply stops on 2012. Being an only child of divorce, I never planned out my future to include things like marriage and children, so a life after 30 seemed (more…)

January 3, 2012 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Just Listen to the Rhythm of My Heart

Yesterday I took a big chance. I wrote an article about my boyfriend on CultureMap- which gets way more traffic than my blog does. I often find it difficult to write long posts, but I found myself able to nearly write a book about my boyfriend. The post, titled “Do You Believe in All the Cliches? A Sappy Relationship Story”, is about how I used to date douchebags and then one day I stopped. I met the most wonderful person and it made me believe that all those cheesy cliches about love might be true. I nervously watched as my boyfriend read the piece once it was posted. The more he read the more my stomach twisted in knots. He loved the piece and when he was done reading I went and gave him a tear-filled hug.

Enjoy the sap…

 ________

I used to date douchebags, then one day I stopped.

I’m not sure what made me stop acting this way. Maybe I finally grew up. Maybe I became more confident in who I was. Maybe I met the right person.

Or maybe it was all of those things combined.

Before (more…)

November 19, 2011 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life, Writing

When Good is Never Enough: A Dilemma for the Twenty-Something Blogger

I switched my blog over to WordPress a little over a month ago and I love it. Well, actually my wonderful web designer did because I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I mean, I could have maybe figured it out but I resorted back to that illogical fear that I’ll somehow make my blog implode by pushing the wrong button.

I love the options, the freedom I feel in writing multiple posts and the ability to respond to individual comments that the new blog brings. I still need to add some design work, but all-in-all, I’m very happy with the change.

One thing that stinks is that my traffic took a plummet. I’m still trying to figure out why and trying to correct the problem- if that’s possible. It kind of stressed me out. More than I care to admit. A lot of aspects of my writing have stressed me out lately and I hate to say it, but they’re for fairly superficial reasons.

Writing online is both extremely rewarding and mind-f’ing. One post you get a bunch of feedback or shares or likes (more…)

November 10, 2011 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Dear Diary!

I was telling a friend the other day that my blog was stressing me out. He asked why. I told him that I didn’t have a freakin’ clue. And that’s totally not true. It’s just that I didn’t want to think about why it was stressing me out.

“Well”, he typed over Gchat, “Isn’t your writing supposed to be therapeutic?” I thought about it for a second and realized my writing has become anything but. At one point a long time ago it was a form of therapy. I was young and I was lost and I discovered that putting those two truths down into words helped. A lot. Looking back on those posts I probably sounded like a nutjob, but weren’t we all at 22?

When more than my Mom under a fake pseudonym started reading my blog, I got nervous. I was afraid that people would think it was some lame-ass teenage-esque diary of a young woman who needed a can of “SHUT THE HELL UP!” . Something I wish they actually sold in grocery stores so I could strategically leave outside college student’s dorm rooms in the (more…)

October 10, 2011 by
20-Something

Forgive Student Loan Debt!

I don’t know about you, but I have debt.

Car loan debt, credit card debt, and school loan debt.

The car is almost paid off and I’m two years into a four year plan of paying off my credit card debt.
My school loan debt, on the other hand, has a few years to go. I’m one of the lucky ones though. I have roughly $10,000 left to pay on my school loan. The average college graduate owes $24,000. I know people who owe $40,000, $60,000, $80,000 and up and can’t find work OR or are stuck in a job they don’t like but can’t afford to leave.

One of my favorite reads is Huffington Post’s ongoing “Majoring in College Debt” series where they encourage readers to discuss how much college debt they’re in. Some of the stories are downright frightening- students owing over $200,000, making coffee shop wages, or being harassed by their lenders. One man shared his story of owing over $250,00 for medical school and the great lengths his lender went to try and f*ck him over. While he was working his (more…)

September 28, 2011 by
20-Something, Music

Looking to Songs for Answers

Tonight I saw Arcade Fire, a band I affixed great emotional significance to a long time ago. I recall lonely nights of drinking to, jerking off to, or crying to their first album Funeral. Of thinking that the swell in each song would carry me away to the place I was meant to be at. At 21 years of age and meandering into adulthood, their gospel held truths that I was meant to study and adhere to. When Neon Bible came out, it was the same thing. An organ meant proclamation. Of what? I’m not sure. Either way they were the gateway to the beginning of it all. Or so I thought.

So tonight, in a large field in the middle of Austin, I closed my eyes and tried to stir the nostalgia for a time I looked to songs for answers, but it just wasn’t coming. I closed my eyes more tightly and concentrated as hard as I could. I kicked the dirt over the memories of lying on my bedroom floor hitting repeat on “Rebellion (Lie)” thinking that eventually the song might make me burst into a million tiny pieces. (more…)

September 19, 2011 by
20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Making the Twenty-Something Leap

There comes a point in every young person’s life where they have to make the jump.

Have to because they can’t kid themselves that they’re happy with the safe route anymore. Working jobs that mean nothing to them and waking up every morning trying to kid themselves that they care. Ignoring the hunger pains of a creative appetite gnawing away at them.

“But life is sometimes about working jobs that you don’t like!” the age-old sentiment kept cycling through my head. “But not if I have any say it!” I finally answered back one day. Last week. When I realized that now was the time.

I was born from a musician and an artist. One took the safe route her entire life and regrets it, the other jumped on the Autobahn to creative anarchy. My father tried going the safe route- which included marriage, kid, and steady employment- but ultimately he couldn’t handle the confines. Do I blame him? No. Because I’m just like him. “And that scares me,” my mother can often be found saying. But we live (more…)

August 30, 2011 by