"The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them" -EJS

I have always been afraid of the stillness. People would call it ‘settling down’ or ‘putting down roots’ and I would always call it ‘stagnation’ or ‘being trapped in your own life’.

Stagnant.

If I play a little personal Rorschach test with words rather than inkblots, the first thing that comes to mind is bacteria and mosquitos. I think of stagnant, stale water. Muddy water that has mosquitos flying around them, laying their eggs with bacteria abounding. If you’ve ever been mudding in a truck or pretty much ever visited Alaska in the summer time, you have probably encountered such water. It’s vile, it’s gross, it’s the water I always do my best to keep my dogs from drinking.

I blame society.

From the moment you start Pre-K, you are preparing for NEXT. You do well in grade school and high school for the next thing- college. You take the SATs, you get good grades, and you volunteer at the local shelter because those things look good on college applications. You go to college. You join honor societies, you get good grades, you volunteer some more because those things look good on resumes. You get a job. A job being whatever the first step is you take once you graduate, because the first job is never THE job. Your job out of college is never the job you see yourself doing 30 years from now (If it is, I envy you). You do well at this job. You get your preliminary certifications, you take continuing education courses, and you complete projects because those things look good on yearly evaluations and what comes with yearly evaluations? Raises, promotions, ladder rungs or even grad school admittance.

I feel a Fight Club quote is trying to appear. Fine, I’ll let it.

Single female. “Are you dating anyone?”
Dating female. “Are things getting serious?”
Seriously dating female. “When is he going to pop the question?”
Married female. “When are you going to pop out babies?”
One child bearing female. “When are you going to give little child a baby brother or sister?”
And I can only imagine once you do have kids, the questions shift slightly but ever more relentless regarding said child’s series of NEXT.

I'm sure men have a different but equally annoying series of questions regarding careers, toys and money.

I’ve read many articles about my generation (I am a Millennial because I was born between 1980-2000s), specifically pertaining to this topic. To grossly generalize (read: stereotype) the difference between Millennials and their parents (presumably Baby Boomers-ish), Baby Boomers are hard workers, color between the lines, play it safe, save it up, live in the suburbs with the spouse and 2.5 kids, retire and drive around the country or just fast forward to Florida. Baby Boomers had to earn it, work harder and they worked hard to give their children “what they never had”. Millennials are lazy, pretentious, self-entitled, live paycheck to paycheck, don’t get married, don’t buy houses, don’t have children (or if they do, it’s usually later in life and fewer quantities) and don’t save. Every Millennial has a Participation Award trophy collecting dust in their childhood bedroom from when they played t-ball, or cheered or played football in 3^rd grade. Every Millennial expects the NEXT to be handed to them and only puts actual effort forward if they are truly inspired and deeply moved by something [thus happily negating some of that Fight Club sentiment I might add-but also creating even more difficult questions to answer regarding passion and 'callings'].

We were taught that showing up was enough and that we were all ‘good’ enough.

I would say I fall in the moderate category of my gen. As an only child I would say I am fairly self-entitled, but I know I have to earn it (well, most of it at least). My parents gave me the tools to become successful but never allowed me to just laze around on their support. I didn't have to work my way through college because my parents saved my whole life for it, but I did get wait listed to nursing school, applied to 8 state schools to increase my odds of admittance, took the GRE twice in an effort to get into grad school, didn't get into one, worked my ass to get into another program, etc. I don’t live paycheck to paycheck, but my bank account feels it when I miss one or two. I’ve never owned a home and I still can’t believe I’m married. I’m 30 and have no children and do not feel that I’m missing out on anything in life just yet. The only reason I have a retirement account is my clinic manager made one for me unbeknownst to me several years ago.

But, I am finally finished with school. I have graduated, I have defended my final project, and I have passed my certification exam. I have applied to reinstate my NC nursing license as the first step to getting my nurse practitioner license in North Carolina.

A vogue title going around is “extroverted introvert”. I do not think I am one of these, but it makes me like the idea of hypocritical descriptors. I would classify myself as a “gypsy with a plan”. Some people think some decisions I’ve made were crazy, out of control, risky, etc. But most decisions (not all) that I make come with meticulous planning.

Since graduating high school I had never lived anywhere for more than 18 months until I moved in with Ben. Dorms, college roommates and apartments, more apartments, townhouses, and lower level of a split level home. This was always because I was preparing for the ‘next’. The next school, the next job, the next adventure. Never settling for too long because wherever I was currently, was not where I wanted to be for very long, not because I hated where I was, but because I was always wanting more.

I moved in with Ben after we had been dating for six months- living an hour apart from each other was getting tiresome. He bought this house with his ex-wife, so it has remained ‘his house’, although I have done my fair share of making my own in several ways. Always working on the next project, painting the next wall, replacing the next bathroom.

Never ending, never becoming ‘still’.

All of this to say, I think I ready for some stillness.

As someone who has an aversion of being still, change has always been an exciting challenge for me. I look forward to it, I crave knowing that things will be different and that I will start something new.

I get a feeling that this sensation starts to dissipate as we age. The older we get, the less apt we are to embrace significant changes. The words “adventurous” and “thrilling” are replaced with “foolish” and “risky”. Have you ever tried to convince you Gramps to try a new way of grilling his steak, let alone move? Have you ever tried to convince your mom to sit in a different pew in church, let alone change careers?

I hope to never fully lose that drive for change, but I can definitely see the appeal in these last several months for settling into some roots or however you want to call it...

. . .

So many people in my life are in a state of ‘flux’- when my dad and best friends came to Alaska for my graduation and we were all sitting around the table (including Ben)- we were ALL facing some interesting changes and shifts in life. Graduating college, selling houses, starting new jobs, restarting careers after some time off to face a serious illness, deciding to go back to school and changing careers to name a few. Not to mention to smaller, more nuanced changes.

It was interesting to discuss many of these changes with everyone because people all process challenges and the ‘unknown’ differently. There seemed to be a theme of cautious optimism as well as some fear mixed with excitement. Kind of that feeling where you know it will be a good thing you just haven’t convinced yourself yet. We all seemed to benefit from going around the table to have the other 4 people tell us how excited they were for us, as a way to provide reassurance that we were all going to be OK and treating the unknown as an choice rather than a punishment.

Two of my favorite people exploring Hatcher Pass

I’ve also learned that people around you may be more worried about you that yourself. When I decided to visit Alaska for the first time, MANY people told me not to go because my friend was going to kill me and lock me in a freezer. When I decided to move to Alaska, even more people had things to say, worries they felt they needed to express to me on my behalf- for my own well-being of course.

When we discuss moving to North Carolina and our plans, our dream house, our dream job, our dreams in general- we are often met with questioning, worrisome eyes. People cannot always handle your dreams and path, and this is OK. What’s not OK is to let their worries exacerbate yours. This is really hard to do. It is really hard to not be able to answer a question about your future because you haven’t gotten that far yet or you are still waiting for those steps to appear- and to have someone look at you and say “well…what ARE you going to do???”. I can’t recall how many times I’ve wanted to say “I don’t fucking know and I’m fine with that.” (even if I wasn’t completely fine with it). [This is a great excuse to stop worrying so much about yourself, because everyone else will do it for you].

All Ben and I know is that we are both excited to start a new chapter in our lives- a chapter that is being started not out of necessity, out of illness, out of hardship, out of practicality- but out of the desire to go somewhere new together, to explore a new part of the country together, to buy our first house together, start new careers together, and just be…together.

. . .

We had such a great time in North Carolina a few weeks ago- although a very busy trip. My dad sold his house the second day we were there so we spend several days and evenings helping him clean out, clean up, donate, sell, and pack up while we were there.

Boogie boards anyone?

Ben modeling one of the comfy camping chairs

Enjoying some of dad's flowers while we clean

Cute little pig I found while cleaning out the attic...not sure who this belonged to originally, but I claim it as my own for now :o)

My baby clothes I decided to hold on to

I also was a scout and visited several apartments in Durham for him to check out and luckily we found one that will hopefully be a great fit for him and Joe!

Apartment shopping!

In between all of this, we went to the mountains of Western NC to watch my beautiful niece marry her high school sweetheart in a picturesque outdoor wedding. It was wonderful to see her and meet her new husband.

Helping lace the beautiful bride up like she helped me on my wedding day

Beautiful setting for a wedding!

After the wedding weekend, Ben and I spent some time driving around the Asheville area to try and get a lay of the land. I have not spent much time there and he hasn’t spent any time there other than passing through on a motorcycle trip several years ago- so we felt fairly foreign at first. Luckily we were able to feel pretty grounded by the time we left regarding what towns offered what and where we felt we would fit in best. We also saw 3 houses with two different realtors and we both felt like we have found ‘the one’. It is a very unique home in a town not too far away from Asheville and we are very hopeful we can find a way to make that home ours.

Enjoying some of the local Asheville flavors after a long day of house hunting

Last night in NC- colorful martinis at Dick & Jane's!

Martinis make me happy

Once we returned from NC, we turned into home reno fiends. Finishing bathroom, finishing trim, painting, staining, cleaning, donating, packing, dump runs galore, staging and organizing. I had new injuries every day- splinters, scratches, pulled muscles, headaches from fumes. I’m sure my friends grew tired of my complaining, so I had to keep reminding myself of something my mom once said- one day we were encountering this woman who was 6 months pregnant and she walked like she had been hit by a truck and complained incessantly about the hardships of being pregnant. Once we parted ways with this woman, my mom looked at me in her sweet southern charm and said “that poor woman is acting like she’s the first woman to be ever be pregnant”.

I feel like I’ve been acting like the first woman to try and sell a house. I could blame my generation, being an only child, being 30 and thinking adulting is still stupid and waste of time- but it mostly boils down to it is something I have never done before and never realized the magnitude which goes into selling a home.