Leaving home; some things are bittersweet.

April 29, 20192 Comments

I never meant to be at home this long. I thought after college I’d come home for a few months and then be off, moving into a apartment with a job. God had other plans for me. I got sick. I had to lose my job. I couldn’t take care of myself and I found myself on the couch for two years, then I found myself working part time, adding on hours slowly, unable to pay for a place yet, not fully well either.

So the story went, flash forward three years from graduation and I am finally working full time, still not a hundred percent well, but buying a house with my best friend and soon to be husband. But I’m 24 and I’m still at home. It brings a lot of millennial jokes to the surface, but I don’t mind. I was sick. I needed my parents. I love them and living with them has never been a bother, but it’s time to move on.

I’ve been excited about the move for months now. All smiles and laughter. A chance to make my own home just how I want it. Leveling up, moving to bigger things. It hadn’t quite hit me that this month will be my last month ever living in my childhood home. I’ve lived here my whole life, minus brief periods in a dorm room, but even then, I came home for summer and holidays. My room was still in my room. It didn’t feel like a big change. This is and its bittersweet. Some of my best memories are in these walls and up and down these streets. When I was a kid my whole world existed in these few blocks and it was wonderful, beautiful, and truly everything a childhood should be.

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Reflection: What makes a person’s personality consistent or spontaneous?

January 10, 2019Leave a comment

If you know me now, you’ve known me since 11th grade. I wrote that I was thankful for our ability to edit and change ourselves in my thanksgiving post. I meant it, I know a lot of people who have changed for the better, I’ve changed for the better, but when I look at myself now compared to then, I realize that it wasn’t really change that happened, but more of a consistent polishing.

I’m a consistent person, a remarkable feat given that I’m bipolar, but I guess with enough time that becomes a constant as well. I remember talking to someone and telling them that I felt like I only knew one version of them, and that was all I could know, because they had changed so drastically over the years. Then I looked at myself and realized that there were only three versions of me. My outgoing crazy energetic and social childhood. My self loathing almost bullied to extinction middle years. And the adult version of myself, that surfaced a little early due to all that happened in the stage before. I say adult version lightly, because you can only be so much of an adult in high school, but if you knew me then you would see me now. There is a lot of similarities and though they’ve been edited, my dreams and wishes haven’t changed a ton.

Honestly, I wonder if it makes me a little boring. But I think I’m like this because I figured out some tough questions early on. It was easy for me to pin-point what mattered in my life, and I didn’t have to have violent revelations of self discovery. I fell into a pattern of picking up traits and interests that made sense, if you had been following along you’d see them and go “of course Anna liked and added that!”. Simple. Easy to define.

Again, maybe boring? But I don’t know if people would describe me as boring either, because I’ve got a lot going on, it’s just the type of things in my whirlwind of character are typical for me.

It makes me wonder what makes a person this consistent.

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A type of change that can be more easily defined as “progress”.

February 6, 20151 Comment

This quote is really old. It’s been on social media sites since the first accounts, and to be honest, I don’t even know who wrote it. Regardless, it’s something that I’ve been thinking about lately, and a lot. People always seem to take it to be about traveling or making a home. That’s a subject that’s not even in question to me, because I’ve always been latched onto the idea of a solid home.

This quote though has been hitting me in a completely different way. As someone who is so steadfast I find myself craving for things away from that of what I already know. I’m not a fan of change, if you ask my mom about it she’ll rant for a few hours about how frustrating it was when I was a kid. But now I’m yearning for my wings, I want change. I’m not searching for the type that take me away from everything I’ve ever wanted, but rather a type of change that can be more easily defined as “progress”.

I refuse to be uprooted, but I want to fly, and its difficult to master both. My mind and my soul are constantly arguing over leaving people behind who aren’t good for me anymore, taking on new ideas that I haven’t grown up with, and what would be the best move to move forward. That best way is the biggest thing to figure out. I just need to find a way to keep my roots as deep, yet let my branches reach so high towards the sky that it doesn’t matter if I can’t fly away. That’s really my goal now.