It's GO Time!

Today is the last day of my first job. So, it’s the end of an era, really.

I feel like there should be some sort of graduation ceremony with speeches, buckets of bubbly, and a wild party to cap off my accomplishments and carry me through to the next phase of my professional life.

Everything comes to an end (duh). And I tend to like the idea of endings because they are expected and inevitable. But change is scary. It seems like everything I know about my life right now is falling apart like some doomed relationship in an Adele ballad, and I’m just moronically forging ahead hoping to find something different, better, best.

I am quick to fall into a stable routine and I’ve never been the type to disrupt the status quo. But I've gone and done it.

As huge as this feels, I have to keep reminding myself that leaving your first job is expected and normal and frankly pretty mundane in the grand scheme of things. I’m happy, and healthy, and employed. I have wonderful friends, and great coworkers, and family members who support me no matter what.

This transition is a bit daunting now because I’m right in the thick of it all, but as things mellow out, I know I’ll be happy with my decision. Life is pretty simple, after all. Just do what you love.

Eyes Wide Shut: I'm Sleepwalking Through The Fall

After a whirlwind work week (oh shit, it’s only Wednesday?), my brain has reached epic levels of fogginess. I honestly don’t even have the attention span to read a thought catalog article in its entirety anymore. I can’t even begin to approach the nytimes and honestly, even gchatting feels like a chore.

You know you’re tired when, while perusing facebook, you forget what site you’re on and absentmindedly open a new tab on your browser: oh, hey facebook.

You know you've reached new levels of exhaustion when, as a non-coffee-drinker, you chug a latte for breakfast and experience not alertness but a fleeting non-asleepness. Your eyes droop heavily against the sugary caffeine buzz and all conversations (even those directly involving you) become irritating background noise. You discover you can’t focus on any one sentence but rather hear every sentence overlaid with every other sentence until they form a pleasing hum of garbled speech that sounds almost exactly like one of those sleep-inducing sound machines set to “level 1 – rainforest”.

You know you’ve hit the point of seemingly no return when you fall asleep sitting up in bed holding a tub of Ben and Jerry’s chocolate brownie fro yo at 7 pm and sleep undisturbed until 8 am when your alarm blares loudly and insistently for 15+ minutes. The tub of ice cream is now a tub of warmish brown syrup but your bed is miraculously stain-free thanks to a slumber that more closely resembled a coma.

I suppose this is typical of a Big Girl job. Business naturally ebbs and flows and every day can’t be a perfect nine-to-fiver. My goals for the next month are to not get sick, not gain weight, and pay my bills. Doable? I hope so... ZZZzzzzzzzz

I Tried a Juice Cleanse

I tried a juice cleanse for work and I've been blogging about it all week. It totally put a damper on my social life (you can't really go out with friends for dinners or happy hours when you're drinking bottles of beet juice) so I've got nothing else interesting to write about. No major life drama. So, I thought I'd re-post my work blogs here for a new audience!

You can also read about it here: 365 Days of Wellness.

Three Life Lessons

My grandparents are all pretty old and they’ve done a lot of living. When I make time to fit in a visit or a quickie phone call, these are the three simple life lessons they preach.

Live clean work hard. 
One day at a time. 
It’s not over ‘til it’s over.

My grandparents have a great deal of combined wisdom so I know I should pay attention to what they say because what do I know? Life is still very much without meaning to me, so if octogenarians want to offer tips, I’m all ears.

My grandparents have experienced more love and loss in their lifetimes than I can ever begin to imagine. My DC-grandpa fought in wars and watched close friends die in combat. He suffered from his soulmate’s tragic demise. He remarried only to lose again.  But on Sunday afternoons when I stop by his nursing home with Comet pizza and a slice of chocolate cake, he reminisces joyfully, lingering on only the happy memories.

My grandparents tell me I look like my grandma. They’re not the only ones. Those who see photos remark on the eerily similar countenance and tell me I’m lucky to resemble such a classic beauty. She was too pretty for words so my grandpa says none at all.

My grandparents remind me to live clean and work hard because they know karma will always balance things out.
My grandparents remind me I should take one day at a time because they know, better than I do, that sometimes you don’t get another day.
My grandparents remind me it’s not over ‘til it’s over because they’ve seen endings and beginnings and they know sometimes the end doesn’t look how you expected.

Thinking about getting into this whole blogging thing more...

So, I'm employed now and have been for over a year. I'm too lazy to change the name of this blog but I'd like to keep writing about the post college working world. It seems to be a pretty hot topic these days and obviously it's relevant to my life, so I guess it's all the more important for me to talk/blog about.

My position at work has officially switched from program manager to marketing & communications manager, so for the unforeseeable future, I'll be the resident blogger, online media content manager, and article writer. In general, this is a pretty low stress job and I don't have to report to anyone on a daily basis. That freedom in itself will be a wonderfully refreshing change.

More posts to come. I've got some pretty funny stories from the gym last week. It cracks me up when people make new year's resolutions to get healthy and hit the gym hard for about 6 days and then bail for the rest of the year. Def have to share my experiences with my 2 readers (thanks S and N!)

Happy 2012!

You Know You Have The Best Job In The World When...

So today my boss, a 51-year-old divorcee, brought her hermetically-sealed wedding dress from 1985 into the office. And what a wedding dress it was. Bedecked with crystal beads, a see-through lace bodice, and linebacker shoulder pads, the gown was like an 80's prom dress on crack.

I guess sentimental keepsakes become a lot less sentimental after you've started collecting alimony checks...so my boss, JR, ripped open the careful packaging with nary a care in the world and yanked her many-thousand-dollar gown out of its womb. After laughing hysterically for a good 10 minutes, she finally worked up the courage to try on the monstrosity. (Mind you, this entire ordeal occurred at 1 pm on a Friday afternoon.)

JR headed into the conference room, stripped down, and stepped into the past. At 51, JR, a registered dietitian, has run half a dozen marathons, keeps an elliptical in her 7x10 foot office, and eats nothing but kale and rainbow char. Her figure is that of a 20 year old lingerie model. So, it comes as no surprise when the dress she proudly wore 25 years ago slips easily over her hips and waist and settles nicely over her frame with only the slightest hint of tightness across her upper back. We all laughed and took pictures and then came dress-up time!

DF, one of the younger Program Managers, is about the same size as JR - 5'6, 120 lbs; slim, lean, narrow. She excuses herself to the conference room and pulls the dress on; it fits like it was made for her. She twirls around the office for a bit with a fake bouquet made from pipettes and recycled paper. After a few minutes, she tosses her faux-bouquet behind her back and EB, a co-worker engaged to be married on October 23rd, lunges for the paper flowers, catching the bouquet just before it hits the floor. She holds it up, victorious, and we all cheer and laugh.

The fun was over but my smile lasted for the rest of the day. I can't believe I get paid to do this. I must have the best job in the world.

I've Never Been So Tired In My Whole Life

Wow. The real world is exhausting.

I don't know why this comes as such a shock to me but it's literally an inexplicable feeling when you come home at the end of a 9-5 workday. Until this week I thought I knew what it meant to be tired but now I know the true meaning behind the word (and let's be honest, I'm still being quite the little drama queen. There are people who would laugh in my face right now if they heard me complaining).

When I compare my lifestyle to that of my friends doing "the finance thing" in New York I don't understand how they are still functioning human beings. Their days begin at 6 am and don't come to a close until their heads hit the pillow well after midnight. Although their jobs include long lunch breaks and idle time spent trying to look busy, they are still stuck inside an over-air-conditioned, artificially-lit office building for 15 hours straight. Yuck.

I'm very grateful because I have a fabulous job doing EXACTLY what I want to be doing but it doesn't make it any less draining. Right now I'm working at a wellness company just outside DC. It's a fairly small company but they are swamped with new clients so I really had to hit the ground running. I've only had 3 full days of work, but I'm proud to say I survived them all! It's funny... I was thinking about how I started this blog because I had nothing to do all day and writing was a way to keep me occupied. I blogged because I had nothing better to do. Now, I actually AM employed and I barely had even a second to spare to write this post. I'm wondering if I should rename the blog "I'm NOT blogging because I AM employed"

More to come later... hopefully the weekend will allow for some downtime!

Car Update!

I ended up buying a 2008 Honda CR-V.

It's taffeta white and even though I always pictured myself as more of a silver car kind of gal, I'm a big fan of the color. Very L.A.

To all of my thoughtful followers...thanks for the suggestions along the way. I considered a bunch of different cars before deciding on this one and it was a hard decision to make.

On another note...

Tomorrow (Monday August 23rd) is my first day of work. I'm excited and nervous and can't believe I'll actually be a (semi) fully functioning adult in 23 hours. Woohooo!!!

Wish me luck :)