Hello!
Welcome to my FIRST EVER blog post! Whether you’ve visited my site on purpose, or stumbled upon it by mistake, I hope you are as excited as I am! This post has been a l o n g time coming. I’ve had a handful of amazing experiences, always with the intention of writing about them, but somehow I’ve gotten through 25 years without writing one, single blog post. As this is the first time either of us are reading/writing a blog post of mine, I feel a few introductions are in order… BUT for the sake of time, I’m going to re-direct you to my About Me page. I will, however, take this time to briefly address my excessive use of the exclamation mark(!) I use it a LOT. Please don’t let it bother you. I promise it’s 100% sincere. I’m just happy you’re here!
I’ve always loved the idea of journaling — of taking note of all of the exciting, meaningful, mundane, or (extra)ordinary things that happen to me and then sitting down to process my thoughts through writing. Well, maybe not sitting per se, but reclined on a beach chair or snuggled under a blanket on an overstuffed couch, preferably with some sort of spirited drink in my non-writing hand. I day dream about crouching near the candlelight, scratching notes into a leather-bound journal in some exotic corner of the world. Plus, I read somewhere that a bunch of the world’s most successful people keep/kept a journal. This list includes Barack Obama, Melinda Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah, Hillary Clinton, Thomas Edison, and Beyoncé, (Yes, I made this list up. None of this has been, or will be, fact checked. But feel free to, I bet I’m right.)
A blog, while not as romantic as a torn up, dog-eared, coffee-stained journal, serves essentially the same purpose. This blog will be a journal of sorts– complete with pictures, videos, recipes, anecdotes, and maybe even a few LPTs (Life Pro Tips. If you are unfamiliar with reddit.com, my LPT for you would be to stay very, very far away if you ever plan to get anything meaningful done with your day). I’m not saying that using a blog as a journal is an original concept. I’m simply spelling out the obvious here, just in case anyone thought this blog would be exclusively academic and free of the emotional, impulsive, fickle, and possibly uninteresting musings from my 25 year old brain. As my sister loves to point out, I’ve always had a bit of a flare for the dramatic, so there’s bound to be some real touchy feely stuff on here. You’ve been warned. My hope for my blog is that, from now on, I will remember to stop every once in a while and write some thoughts down. Because life moves pretty fast. Because even though you think you will, you’ll never remember all of those beautiful, fleeting thoughts your incredible mind comes up with. Because Ferris Bueller says so.
Here’s the really great thing about a blog. It provides its writer a special platform to connect to readers. A blog post is meant to be shared— meant to be consumed by foreign eyes. Instead of a lonely stash of secret thoughts it becomes a shared experience. What a great bonus! All of the most wonderful things in life are only made more so when shared with others. Or, as Christopher McCandless put it better, “Happiness is only real when shared.” What’s that? You’ve never read John Krakauer’s, Into The Wild?! Oh my, go read it now! I’ll wait!!
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Now that we’ve all read that literary gem, we can agree that while some mistakes were made, he got that last part right. Real joy is being able to share great experiences with the people you love. That’s the good stuff. So, I want to share this experience with you.
I want my happiness to be real. So I’m going to share it.
I’m finally writing this, and you’re kind enough to read it, and we’re sharing this experience and everything is really lovely. HERE’S THE CATCH. Once I hit ‘publish’ and my words are sent out into the world, I might as well have chiseled them into stone. This is terrifying. I change my mind a hundred times a second, a million times a day. Who knows how I’ll feel 5 minutes after posting this? This is the same reason I’ll never get a tattoo. I know, I know. Never say never. But you can be pretty sure about this one thing, Mom. Aside from my tendency to procrastinate and my extreme bouts of laziness, this is probably the biggest reason why I’ve never blogged. But you’re supposed to do one thing every day that scares you right? So here I go!
GOODBYE!
My dad recently moved to Phuket, Thailand to run an english school. HOW COOL IS THAT?! I know!!!! So, I will be spending the beginning of 2015 visiting my dad and getting my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification in Phuket. Bangtao Beach, to be exact. I suppose this is the real catalyst behind my blog. I’ve posted the school’s website along with a little more information on the page titled Thailand. I’m planning to spend a lot of time walking on the beach, hanging with my dad, and doing as little studying as possible. I’m told I’ll be very close to a yoga studio, dive shop, and a little french restaurant complete with a 20-something adorable french hunk. I’m finally going to travel somewhere cool and collect a whole bunch of new experiences and, darn it, I’m going to write about it if it’s the last thing I do!
This big move, coupled with my 25th birthday (today is my birthday!!), has landed me squarely in the midst of what some would call a “Quarter Life Crisis”. I don’t completely disagree with the word choice. Sometimes “CRISIS” is exactly what it feels like. From here on out, though, I’d like to refer to this as my “Quarter Life Relax, Everything Will Turn Out Fine”. Maybe at the end of the day a rose is still a rose but hey, life’s all about perspective, isn’t it? And I’m choosing to see this glass as half full.
Which brings me to my final, closing words about glasses and their states of fullness/emptiness. YOU are not drinking enough water. NONE of us are drinking enough water. I’m serious. Start drinking more water. You’ll feel better. Also, where is my birthday margarita?
xo,
N