On the eve of my 27th birthday,
I lightheartedly, but honestly, reflect on a few big lessons I've learned. My days, thoughts, years and experiences basically revolve around the topics of health, work, and relationships so here I share my oh-so-enlightened wisdom on the subjects. Please feel free to enjoy, roll your eyes, ignore, laugh, or kindly smile at the fact that I have so much more to learn.
The Bod:
If you feel like crap in your body, you need to change something: either your body, your mind, or both.
This is not a “you are amazing in any shape, size, or color ” mantra.
Because while those are nice, I've learned reality gets results.
You may not look great. You may look like the bottle of vodka that mixes really well with grenadine and Sprite that you've been tossing back at happy hour. You may look like you've seen the inside of a Pinkberry at 11pm a few too many times. You may actually, feel like old baloney and well, look like it.
Conversely, you may look toned, fit, and be the envy of every bloated woman that passes you on the street and feel like crap. You may go to the gym, rocking Lululemons and biceps, and see an unhappy woman on the treadmill in the mirror in front of you.
Sometimes you’re going to feel bad and look bad. Sometimes you’re going to look externally great and feel bad. Many people are going to tell you you’re beautiful, wonderful, and should love yourself but if you feel like crap, YOU need to change something. Not your mom, not your boyfriend, not your best friend.
I've experienced both of these bodies and each of these mindsets. I know now to step back, look inside, and be damn honest with myself.
In college I was hitting the ol’ bag of Franzia on the regular and created a delightful blend of self-consciousness and sugar on my waistline. I needed to change my habits and subsequently, my body.
A couple years ago I was tanned, toned, a cardiovascular gazelle and often felt like crap. I felt like this sculpted vessel I was living in was never good enough. I thought my body was my identity and nothing else. I needed to change my habits and subsequently, my mind.
You deserve to feel good in your body. If you don’t, something needs to change. Sometimes it’s the hard realization that midnight pizza ends up on your butt. Sometimes it’s the realization that your butt is not your character.
Career and Ca$h Money:
You need to work. Shocking.
Not the work you've entertained in high school or college, but real work. The work that makes you question who you are in life and why you're wearing a pantsuit at 7am. Maybe it's not a pantsuit and maybe it's not in an office but the work that makes you uncomfortable. The kind that makes you realize life is not a venti chai in a coffee shop window with a macbook, Uggs, and browser open to Pinterest.
I have found in my meager little experience that while the above situation is delightful, it is horribly comfortable. Literally (new Uggs feel like a hugging lamb) and figuratively. And nothing is produced from comfortable.
You're going to need to feel tired, worried, stressed, overworked and underpaid. To create change you need to step out of comfort and into early mornings with frosted windows and uncomfortable shoes. You're going to need to hear negative feedback, ask hard questions, get hung up on, and spill coffee on your shirt.
I've learned that the cute turquoise and cream pillow I'm holding in HomeGoods comes out of my paycheck. That my bank account will cut in half when I submit a loan and I will do it again next month. That money is a real thing, progress is a real thing, and you need to get pretty damn far out of your comfort zone to earn both.
Hashtag Love:
We all know what it’s like to be the “cool girl.” The girl that’s carefree and tells you we’re, “fine with whatever you want babe.”
The girl that genuinely likes football and knows it’s wing night. Or maybe the girl that reads English poetry and paints in t-shirt dresses with cat eye glasses. Or whatever the hell else you like that we want to be.
That girl has an expiration date.
Pretty soon the wing-eating, Keats reciting, watercolor mixing, touchdown celebrating girl is going to realize that she hates painting and doesn't give a damn that your team is losing. Pretty soon she’s going to question who she is, why she’s with you, and you’re going to miss the girl that ate at whatever Groupon you were inboxed that day.
I've been a hippy, bar hopper, and poet. I've been a mix of all three. I've been whatever I thought would get “that guy” to think I was cool.
That girl expires because I now know I’m me.
I’m sometimes funny, sometimes annoying. I like good salads with grilled chicken and don’t want to pretend I can eat a 5lb burger. I get lost while driving in the city and freak out about it. I’m sometimes entertaining and sometimes a snarky crab.
I don't wear sexy clothes to bed- they get twisted up my butt. They invented sweatpants for a reason. I don't wake up looking sun-kissed...that's called sneaking out of bed 20 minutes before you wake up so you think I'm the bronzed angel you went to bed with. I'm not, and I have mascara crust in my eye.
It's taken 27 years but I've realized this girl is me and this girl isn't going to expire.
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