I feel like I have taken the past four months as a challenge, how many milestones can I fit into one summer? Depends on what qualifies as a milestone but I’ll say roughly 6. In the past four months I have gotten my first ever straight A’s (1), those straight A’s walked me across the stage to graduate college (2), I found a full time job (3), I got engaged (4), I turned 24 (5), and my fiancé and I are closing on our first house in 36 days (6)! Is it too much in such a short amount of time? Is there such thing as too many good things? Is it too pessimistic to think that it can only go down from here? With all the happiness and amazing life events is it out of place to feel lost? We have all been told that if it’s too good to be true there’s probably a catch and I think I’m caught. With each moment that is so impactful on my life and building me to who I am and who I will be, I almost feel more lost.. School ended in a screeching halt and where school left off, the rest of my life picked up and sprinted whether I was ready or not. There was a point where school would have been the death of me and in the worst I found the best. I was drawn to the most important, strong, loving people I will ever have in my life or maybe they were drawn to me. I owe my success and happiness to my fiancé, my mom, my family and my chosen moms. Without these people I would have been left in the dust to fall short of the shallow goals I set for myself but with them I achieved goals they set 10 times higher for me because I didn’t have to reach them alone. And it’s almost like having reached the top of a mountain, now what? It’s literally only down from here. I have accomplished my hardest challenge, now what? What happens to these people who I depended on on a daily basis to talk to and laugh with and spend time with almost everyday? And what I thought was my hardest challenge had yet to come. Starting a full time job and looking for a home and doing what a grown adult does after college has taken all the many good things and tinged them. It’s like signing a yearbook “keep in touch over summer.” You have the best of intentions and you don’t think any less of that person but life goes on. We find a way to patch the void, not fill because there is a hole, but lightly patch over it to look put together. My void is all those people I have let fall through the cracks in the past four months, the conversations and laughs and routines I had with these individuals that made me, me. There is less time in the day to hear their voices let alone see them. There is more catching up to do, more “I’ll talk to you later,” less “I’ll see you tomorrow,” longer hugs to make up for the lack of. For all the milestones in my life I feel like I am miles from the ones who I want closest to celebrate with me and if you can’t see it, it’s killing me slowly. These people are my oxygen, my blood, my love. It’s like breaking up and not wanting to. It’s like drowning in a desert… There’s no reason to not be happy because look at all of these great things but the “older” I get the more I realize it really is about being happy. It’s not about the ring or the house or the job or the degree. It’s waking up everyday and knowing you will see amazing people and have amazing conversations and laugh and be loud and be unconstrained. It’s learning to separate yourself from people who don’t care or need you in your life, it’s being mature enough to not deal with the bullshit and to only surround yourself with people who build you up.  

    
    
   

 

 I would do anything and give up everything for these people. I am nothing without them in my life. A person is more than just skin and bones, there’s a soul and a light that isn’t just there, it brightens and grows and learns from others. I always say I have my given mom and given family but I also have chosen moms. I have people in my life who I have been so grateful to have no choice but to be stuck with (in the best way) and I have people in my life who I have chosen to stick with. I surround myself with a powerhouse of strong women I can look up to, business owners, moms, independent women and men in my life who treat not only women but people and animals right. Men who are the real definition of striving to be the best. I have everything I need in these people and I need to keep them in my everyday life, every day.