Real Life 103: Just Laugh At It

I might be a teensy bit behind the times here, but I have just recently gotten completely hooked on the show Friends. It might be borderline obsession, but everyone goes through that with a show at some point in their life, right? It turns out that Maura was holding out on me all four years of college and actually owns all 10 seasons, and once we moved into the apartment it didn't take me long to start watching along with her. I recently decided to catch up on the show and start all the way from the beginning...square one...Season 1, Episode 1. And now I can't stop. Maura's friend Kristen (who also loves Friends, now all three of us can bond over its awesomeness) introduced me to the term "binge-watching" - watching episode after episode of a show for hours on end - and that's pretty much what I've been doing. Such. An. Amazing. Show.

The first thing that got me hooked on Friends was that it literally made me laugh out loud. It still does, as a matter of fact. I can rarely watch shows that aren't funny, but this one easily makes the cut. I've found myself doubled over at times with how much it made me laugh, and in a busy, stressful life, sometimes you need something like that. 

But there was something else as well. I found that Friends was oddly relevant to my own life. Maybe not the exact scenarios - my roommates and I haven't sat around in wedding dresses and I haven't (and never will) bet away my apartment. Still, the underlying themes are there (English major nerd moment, woo!). For instance, take the first couple lines of the theme song:

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way

Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A."

Uh, could you say it any better? Basically my life. And can I emphasize the fact that no one really did tell me (or anyone else for that matter) that real life was like this? Not saying that it's bad, but that it's really not as glamorous as any of us would have expected it to be. After talking to my friends, it seems that all of us, no matter where we're at right now, are completely clueless about life. What's going to happen next? Why is this so much harder than I thought it would be? Why am I so anxious about what I'm doing or what the future will bring? The list goes on and on...

But you know what, that song helps me to laugh about it. Friends as a whole helps me to laugh about it. We really have no idea what the heck we're doing and it must be hilarious for the fly on the wall watching us try to figure it out. I have to say, though, I may be able to sit and laugh about it now, but this has been a long time coming. I certainly wasn't of that mindset two years ago, and I definitely wasn't in the laughing mood when I first moved into my apartment back in November. 

The truth is, I was overwhelmed with the real world. It smacked me in the face. I had a hard time with it when I was living with my dad, but it got even harder when I moved out on my own. I had no idea where my life was going, no way to figure it out...and no way to deal with the anxiety. For the first three or four months in the apartment, I was having regular emotional breakdowns and honestly couldn't stop them, no matter how hard I tried. I won't bore you with what those breakdowns were about because I honestly can't pinpoint one particular thing, but to sum it all up I think it was generally being overwhelmed with real life. Some days it was so bad that I actually thought I was going insane. 

Now, to lighten the mood a bit, those of you that have seen me in recent months know that I'm back to my happy-go-lucky Heather self (again - woohoo!). I'm looking on the bright side of things and generally act like I could eat rainbows and poop butterflies (Horton Hears a Who, anyone?). So was it Friends that brought about this drastic turnaround? ABSOLUTELY NOT. 

Haha! Gotcha! Ok, maybe I didn't get you. Let's be honest, who can have their entire mindset turned around by a '90s sitcom? I'm a strange one but I'm not that ridiculous...

No, the turnaround came from re-igniting my prayer life, the support of my amazing family and friends (real friends this time, not the show), and making a conscious effort to end my complaints and improve my own mood. Where the show came in was after the important work had been done, the time here in the real world, and the timing was perfect. I had found myself in a much better place and I had something that not only kept me laughing, but that I could now look at and say, "OMG that's so true!" Take for instance, Monica's line to Rachel at the end of the pilot: 

"Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You're gonna love it!" 

Sure it's a little contradictory, but it really hits the nail on the head! I've already been through that first taste of how the real world can suck - and now I'm enjoying how awesome it is and I LOVE IT!! And I'm not just talking about the perfect times, but the not-so-perfect times as well. This is mostly attributed to the more positive outlook that I've had on everything, but Friends has helped to keep that positive outlook going. It helps me to take those ridiculous little annoyances that everyone has to go through and shrug them off. You know, those odd little moments like:

1. Running through the apartment screaming, "I HAVE TO KILL A BUG!!!!"

2. Smacking and kicking the washing machine to get it to work.

3. Finding a melted plastic spoon in the dishwasher then Googling "how to get melted plastic off metal rod in dishwasher."

Plus, by being able to laugh about the little things, we can handle the bigger tough moments a little bit better, too. The real world is filled with all kinds of painful and joyous moments of independent living that we all need to embrace a little bit more and try not to let them get to us too much. As my grandpa said, "Don't sweat the small stuff." After all, it's those little imperfections that keep life interesting and give us all our greatest stories.

So learn to role with the punches....and of course, laugh at them :)

Real Life 102: Being a Grown-Up is Confusing

It has officially been a little over two years since I graduated college, and life since then has been...eye-opening. It always amazes me how in every phase of your life, you have all sorts of older people telling you what things will "really" be like with your next step. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're a little off, but more often than not you say, "Psht, silly Old Person, that's nonsense"  - only to eventually realize that they were in fact at least partially correct. You then quietly walk into the corner, put on your Dunce cap, and figure out what to do next.

These past couple years, I feel like I've been the dunce more than ever before - and I know that I'm definitely not the only one (far from it, in fact). Before post-grad life, everything is spelled out for you - you finish middle school, you go to high school. You're done with Brownies? On to juniors. Our successes and failures are defined by good grades and bad grades, awards (or lack thereof), and acceptance letters to schools and programs. In some form or another, everything seems, to some extent, to be laid out in black and white. Post grad life? Not so much.*

I, along with many of my friends and fellow 20-somethings, have hit a point where, for the first time in our lives, we're sitting here wondering about what comes next. We are officially the nobodies of the work force, trying to figure out how to work our way up and learn about some sort of positive contribution that we can, well...contribute (other than successfully loading the printer with paper, which can actually be a feat in itself sometimes). We wonder why our hard work doesn't produce instant results like it used to, and wonder what in the world we're doing with our lives. Where will I end up? What do I want to do in life? How do I have fun and maintain a job and bills? Why is it so much harder to make new friends?? TOO MANY HARD QUESTIONS I DON'T WANNA GROW UP!

When I studied abroad in Spain my junior year of college (and subsequently found myself ready to take on the world - oh the naivete), my friends and I went to go see Avenue Q on our trip to London. If you've already seen it, well then you're a step ahead of the game, will know what I'm talking about, and I officially give you 10 points to Gryffindor (or brownie points for life - whichever you prefer). If you haven't seen it, then 1. You totally should, it's an awesomely hilarious musical and 2. Don't worry, I'll give you a summary and will save your brownie points for when you do see it. Avenue Q is basically the grown-up version of Sesame Street, and centers around a character named Princeton and his hysterical journey to try and discover his purpose in life after college. Toward the beginning of the play, there's a song called "What do you do with a B.A. in English?" As an English major myself, when I first saw this play I thought, "That's not me! Being an English major isn't useless!" After college? Oh, how sadly true I found that song to be (at least the first part, I don't actually think that my life sucks). I suddenly found myself thinking, "Oh crap, that's totally my life right now..."

The thing is, there's tons of college prep courses and schools to get ready for university life. Sure, those courses can only do so much and college is still an adjustment, but at least there's something. There's nothing in college that seems to even attempt to prepare you for real life. Everything seems to be going pretty smoothly, then all of a sudden you leave school and wonder what in the world you got yourself into with this whole adulthood thing. This article on Buzzfeed that I found yesterday seems to sum it up pretty well: What You Think Life After College Is Like vs. Reality.



Plus, not only are you surprised by how difficult things are in your early 20s, but you wonder how long it's all going to last. When will things finally come together? Will I ever find the right career? What about my future husband? When in the world is he going to show up? How many things do I have to screw up before something finally goes right?

Luckily, Buzzfeed (in its infinite wisdom) posted another very good article that gives all of us 20-somethings a little sign of hope. It's called 19 Successful People Who Had A Rough Time In Their Twenties.

Wait...we don't have to have it all figured out right now? There's a chance for success later in life?? Who knew...

Now, I'm not saying that we should completely give up on our twenties. Not at all. We still need to do our best to figure it out and live life to the fullest. And who knows, maybe things will come together faster than we think. All I'm saying is that, if this confusing-beyond-belief period seems to drag on a little bit longer than we might like, that doesn't mean that things won't get better down the line. We "millennials" are used to instant gratification, and I think it's about time we learn a little patience and perseverance. We still have a lot to learn in life, and from what I've heard, our 20s are one of our biggest times for growth and learning. Whether it's with our relationships, our careers, our overall life plans...everything will come together in good time.

So to my fellow lost-and-confused 20-somethings out there -- chin up! All will be well, and we'll each figure everything out (or at least accept the fact that we may never figure it out) in our own time and way.

*As an added disclaimer, I obviously know that life has not been completely black and white and that everyone has their own experiences that can be exceptions. I'm just speaking in general terms on a high level, and based on how many of my peers also seem to find themselves feeling lost