Hello, Thirties!

This summer is just flying by and so much has happened and so much has changed, I can't even find time to write...not even in my paper journal.

I spent a week in Chicago this summer, it is the farthest west I have ever been. While there my department chair endorsed my research topic for my dissertation. I am a year out from entering comps for my PhD...it's getting a little scary, I can't lie.

I started selling LuLaRoe clothing and that has been an amazing adventure. It has brought so many new people into my life and it brought back so many old friendships that died as we all were busy growing up. It feels good to see so many faces back in my life.

I turned 30 this summer too, but moments before I did, PHIL PROPOSED! I'm engaged and we're planning a November wedding for next year. AHH! I am so excited to be marrying the love of my life and planning the wedding that we both have always dreamed of. I really can't wait.

I'm actually really excited for this time in my life. I get to be a wife in this decade, and maybe a mom. I'll also hopefully get tenure and finish my PhD. And then begin all new dreams and journeys along with it. I started this blog when I was 23? 24? I spent a lot of time writing about finding love, but now I want to write about what you do once you've found it. 

This is a Story of an Independent Female

I moved around after college and inevitably found myself back living with my dad in the attic that had seen me get ready for prom and go off to college. It was a smart move in that I enrolled in graduate school and became a teacher. I also got myself out of all the debt moving around had caused...New York was not a cheap adventure.I do think that everyone needs to live in New York at least once, most likely in their early to mid-20's, but then you need to leave it and move on. New York is tiring and really overrated. There's other adventures to be had.

It also made me fixated on the idea that when I moved again, it would be to a place wholly my own. I did not want anymore crazy room mates and I didn't want to move in with my boyfriend. I wanted the experience of having someplace that was completely mine that my parents had no claim on. I wanted ultimate privacy.

I rented a one bedroom apartment on the second floor of a building a town away from where I work. I filled it with art, and vintage plates, cute pillows and little knick-knacks that I would find at the local thrift store. I moved over the summer so when fall began to give way to winter, I learned pretty quickly that apartments and heat do no coincide. I treated myself to a gel fireplace.

I searched all over for one, finally finding the perfect one that would match the slate on my coffee table. It arrived the night of a school function where I came home around 8pm and found it sitting on my doorstep...several huge boxes that the UPS person stacked and left.

I set to work immediately, I propped open the doors and began lifting one box up and in. I was successful with the first, but then the unthinkable happened. I kicked the doorstop to the outside door out and when I turned to grab the door, it had already slammed shut. Worse yet, my keys were dangling from the door of my apartment...on the inside.

After cursing and literally stomping my feet. Hey, I was very sweaty and still in work clothes, I decided my only option was to ring my downstairs neighbor's bell because of course, my phone was in my bag that I could see on the other side of the now locked door.

I rang the bell and held my breath. I hadn't even met my downstairs neighbor yet.All I knew about her was that she was a teacher like me. I felt all sorts of terrible when she came to the door, in her pajamas.

"Uh, I'm sorry to bother you, but well you can see," I stopped, feeling awkward and unsure.

She laughed. "I saw that! I can't believe they just left you with those boxes. I'm Gail," she said, still sleepy, but friendly.

I relax. "I'm Katherine."

We shake hands and she offers to help me. I decline, thinking that as long as I didn't lock myself out again that I should be good to go. I lug the boxes up the stairs, panting and grunting the whole time. Though the fireplace is in pieces, it's all wood and planks of wood stacked into boxes is ridiculously heavy. I get everything upstairs and begin to take everything out of the boxes.

I sigh when I realize that I now have to lug all of the Styrofoam and cardboard back down the stairs and out to the dumpsters.

I am exhausted by the time I get back upstairs and sit down on the floor of my living room. I begin to put the pieces of my fireplace together. At this point, I am sticky and gross, but I want that fire place put together because I know that in a week or so, I'm going to need it.It's almost 10pm at this point and I am trying very hard not to make a lot of noise while I balance pieces on top of each other. My hand starts cramping from having to screw everything together and just as I get the front mantle done, I realize the worst is yet to come.

Overstock never pre-drilled the holes and no matter how hard I push, the screw is going nowhere.

I burst into tears. Milo is sitting next to me at this point, watching the entire episode with faint curiosity. I throw the screw driver down and walk away. He scurries off at the sound, it will take him a good hour to come out of the bedroom.

Life and sanity return after I down a glass of iced tea. I begin to scour every other piece, making sure the holes are there. I decided that as long as I could get everything else together, it would most liely stay together until I could get a power drill.

And so I did and so it has also sat in my living room, warming me all winter.

I never did get that power drill though and when I move in two weeks, it's going to be fun getting it out of my apartment.

I really think it's time to buy that drill now.

Every Girl & Her 3 Big Loves

There's this theory that every woman has three big loves of her life. This theory was largely perpetuated by one of my all time favorite shows, Sex and the City, wherein Charlotte inadvertently insults Carrie by saying every woman gets three. Carrie then takes it the wrong way when she realizes that that would mean she was done and at the time single.

I was reminded of that episode today. For some reason, perhaps it's the change of the seasons or all the change that's happening in my life right now, but today, two people closest to me where bringing up the big loves of my life. Note: This means I've had my big three (maybe three and a half).

And at almost 30, about to move in with my longterm boyfriend into the house we just bought, I am okay with that. However, it did get me thinking and it reminded me how each woman in my life had picked a different love for me to wind up with.

Christmas 2014.

There was my high school into college sweetheart who was my first everything. We drifted apart our senior year of college for a variety of reasons, but I think the big one was that he is very happy living a life in the town that he grew up in and I have always had my sights set on bigger things. That year, I had lived abroad for the first time and my wanderlust thirst was only beginning. We're still friends and talk on occasion. Most importantly, we're both happy too. My dad always thought that this love would be the one I married.

Then came the big one, my first relationship after my high school sweetheart. I was just out of college and trying to figure myself out. I hadn't found a job yet. He was four years older and the exact opposite of my ex-boyfriend. He knew how to woo a girl-- flowers, phone calls until all hours of the night, cute little things...it didn't take long for me to fall hard. And then, for it to all fall apart rather quickly. We were young. He still had a lot of jerky boy crap to go through and he had to live out his college days. It was devastating though and it hurt me for a long time. This love plunged me into moving around, taking big risks, dating really stupid guys and just not caring. Years later, we would try to be friends but somewhere in him saying something stupid to me on Facebook and then asking me for advice about a girl he was dating....it just didn't last long. Before it got to that point though, my mom thought that this was the love that I would marry.

Now here's the half. And no, no one thought I would marry this one. This was the broken guy, the emotionally unavailable guy that liked having me around, but God forbid he ever commit and seriously, how dare I even think about dating other men. Being with him was like a drug and it became a really bad addiction. The drama and the constant up and down with him was at times exhilarating especially when there were times where I felt like I "won." Won what, I am not sure, but at the time if something went my way or filled a want, then I had won and it made me want to keep going. When he did finally half-ass commit, it was short lived. I had a date set that I was going to dump him, he beat me to it though and for some reason that hurt more than anything else he had done. Later on, we tried the friendship thing. Also, short lived. I call this my half because looking back now, I think I was more addicted to the chase of it than I was in love with this person. He was pretty crappy to me...a lot...but it was really like a drug. One that I was happy to finally have kicked and after him? Well, I called every guy out on their bs the moment I found it in dating. No one thought this was the love I would marry, but this was the love that changed me and made me harder to get.

Which leads me to Phil, my last love. The kind of love that wrote me a poem on our third date, and came with me on my grand European backpacking tour, who brings me diet soda and rubs my feet (with lotion) and tucks me int bed at night. The kind of love that washes my hair and brings me flowers because it's Thursday and he wanted to. The kind of love that makes up the worst songs and sings them to me when we cuddle. The kind of love that I can see being the father of my children and growing old with him. The kind of love that lets me be myself, even if that means I make ASMR videos on school vacations just for fun. The kind of love that I know I'll marry. 

Book Review: Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Phil took me to see this in theaters over my Christmas break. I love every minute of it, largely because my girl, Reese was the leading role. I also liked it because it showed a woman's insane journey back to herself following traumatic experiences within her own life. I identified with Cheryl greatly because I too have had periods in my life where I was totally lost and heartbroken.

The book in comparison was much more detailed than what they were able to fit in the two-hour movie. What I appreciated most about the book was Cheryl's honesty even in the grittiest of parts. It made her real and greatly humanized her for me.

Overall, I going in just greatly admired her balls for walking the PCT by herself and then as I read, I admired her even more for writing such a candid memoir about her experience. This is a must read, for sure.

This review refers to the Vintage Books first edition from March 2013 of WILD  by Cheryl Strayed with ISBN 0307476073.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Book Review: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

The story of Chris McCandless isn't exactly new. There were plenty of young men before him and plenty after him that believed, almost arrogantly, in their intelligence and ability so much so that they felt that even against the strength and almighty power of nature at its most wild that they would win out regardless of how ill-prepared they were for their journey. McCandless was a smart, well-educated twenty something from a well-off suburb of Virginia. His family, friends and those that knew him described him as such adding that, Chris often liked to be alone, not in the sense of being a "loner" and all that that term conjures, but in that, Chris didn't mind being alone and often was, finding ways to entertain himself.

He enjoyed wandering. He took long trips across the US and would often disappear for long stretches of time. After his graduation from Emory University, McCandless did just that. He packed up and left, eventually getting rid of his car, possessions and even burning what little money he had on him. From there, he drifts all over the West before finally trekking into the Alaskan bush country with ill-fitting boots and little to no food on him.

He plans to live off the land and strike out on his own totally negating the fact that he does not have the supplies needed nor has he taken the time to build the skill set that is needed to survive in the wilderness. Ultimately, the end of Chris McCandless is evident and it's easy to write him off as a know-it-all kid that got in over his head and paid the ultimate price.

And in some parts I do have to agree with that. He had a comfortable life set up for him and he gave it all away to pretty much tell his parents, up their's. On the other hand, Krakauer also includes stories of other boys who did the same as McCandless including stories of his own rebellion and his stupidity and near-death experience in trying to climb the Stikine Ice Cap. He spoke of how in your early twenties you grasp mortality, but your own seems so far off and something you're incapable to completely understanding that you slmost want to push yourself into the tip of it, the brink in order to look down on it and feel it.

Which, I get. It reminded me of how when I was 23, I went sky-diving and nothing makes you feel mortal and face your own mortality more than throwing yourself out of a plane and plummeting to earth with nothing but some flimsy material to save you. It was exciting, thrilling and it took away any and all control I had over myself and my well-being. It was exhilarating and something I probably will never do again.

Overall, did Chris McCandless over do it on the rebellion? Heck yes! But, his story and John Krakuer's take on it does make for a good read.

And then there's always the 2007 Sean Penn  movie adaptation which boasts lots of beautiful scenes and enough Eddie Vedder to keep any Pearl Jam enthusiast satiated:

Score: 5/5
Book Information: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer was reissued on August 21, 2007 through Anchor Books with ISBN 978-0307387172.