Just Another Day, and Another Number…

Today is my birthday. I’m still in my mid-twenties, thank you very much, but I have some friends who were trying to tell me that I’ve hit my late 20s. I may be above 25, but I’m not ‘late’ yet.

I had  to get up early this morning and drive five hours back to Chicago from my hometown, Dayton, Ohio. I was going to get back to the city earlier, but the mad crazy snow we’ve had in the Midwest this week prevented me from driving sooner.

I just met my sister for the first time this week. Yep, 26 years old and just met my sister. Oh wait, I just found out I even had a sister back in October. She’s my half sister and she’s 51. Way to go, Dad. Three kids, one each from three different women. I always knew you were a ladies man

So I don’t have any sage advice for you young 20-somethings out there… I’ll just say this: You may get smarter, but things don’t necessarily get easier. Once I’m a ripe 26-year-old instead of a baby, maybe I’ll be able to expound upon that for you.

Tags: aging, birthday, kids

Groundhog Day

One year ago today, I was having a mental breakdown. I was just over two months into my first bout of unemployment in my mid-twenties and I hit a wall.

It was easy at first – I was laid-off one week before Thanksgiving in 2008 and just took a long holiday to be with my family over Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had the most amazing New Year’s ever when the calendar changed from 2008-2009. I had met a guy who I thought could be the man of my dreams and spent most of January in pure bliss on cloud nine.

Come February, things started to fall apart (timing really is everything in almost every situation), and the reality of my jobless situation in the dead of winter in Chicago had hit me. Not to mention my 25th birthday was upon me, and I felt completely worthless.

I did what any self-respecting upper-middle class 20-something would do in the face of a mental breakdown: I got in my car and drove five hours home to mom and dad. I say this with some farce, of course. While the visit home was therapeutic and maybe good for me, it really was just me running away. I’ve done it more than once, and I’m not necessarily proud of it, but it’s something that many kids in our generation do have the luxury of doing.

See that  guys? I said luxury. Yep, running home to mom and dad might seem lame, but if it’s an option for you, please be glad. Just imagine if you couldn’t…

Tags: running away, unemployed

When Parts of Life Crumble…

It has been a couple weeks since my last post because I have been focusing on more important things – like my full-time job as an online Web site manager and content writer.

I have been busting my ass at work, putting in extra effort and time to make sure I’m treating my Web sites as well as I can and giving them all the attention they need and deserve.

Yesterday at 2:00 p.m., the director of my department came over to my desk and asked me to join him for a last-minute meeting that had been called in the big conference room. The rest of my team was already headed in, so I got up and went.

There was an array of people from various departments in the room, and everyone looked kind of confused. None of us knew what the meeting was about. I sat next to one of my teammates, and we started talking about who was in here, what was going on, etc.

She jokingly said, “Maybe they’re going to fire us all.” And I responded, “Ha! Can you even imagine?”

Three minutes later, our early-30s amazing and awesome CEO walked into the room and made his way to the front. He passed me, and I noticed the expression on his face. He looked like he was about to burst into tears and vomit simultaneously.

Being a very direct man and a man of few words, he stood up there and simply said, “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. You’re all being laid-off right now.”

My heart has never pounded so hard. I was sure it was going to burst through my chest and land on the table. I had been at this company for 10 months, and had no plans of leaving anytime soon. I loved my job, my company, my coworkers – all of it. It was the total package, and it was an incredibly successful and growing company. Who knew? Who knew that this generation-Y, Google-esque company was in trouble – so much trouble that it had to lay-off nearly 25 percent of its employees? Not I.

I’m devastated. I have been laid-off before – but it was different. I hated that company and that job, and I had one foot out the door anyway. This is going to be harder. If there’s one thing people need to start preparing for, it’s the possibility of losing your job, no matter how much job security you may think you have.

This economy is brutal. I’m 25 and I’ve now been let-go for reasons beyond my control twice in the last 15 months. Not awesome.

I’m going to take this opportunity to strive for bigger goals. Wish me luck, and I will keep you posted…

Tags: Employment, laid-off, Unemployment

What Happens When You Fall in Love with Your Best Friend?

Don’t worry, it’s not just you. Falling in love with your best friend is way more common than many people realize – believe me, I’ve done it.

Twice.

The first time, I’m not sure if I was actually in love with him – I was only 17, a virgin, and it’s hard to tell what I was feeling at the time; but I know it felt intense, and it hurt a lot whenever he dated someone else.

I never told him I thought I was in love with him, and now we’re good friends again with nothing but platonic feelings between us.

The second time I fell in love with my best friend, it wasn’t the same guy. The second guy was someone I met in college and became friends with gradually. Over time, I fell in love with him.

Obviously this is not an uncommon phenomenon. If you listen to anyone who is married, they’ll tell you they are married to their best friend – so why shouldn’t you fall in love with you best friend?

You should, by all means. It just sucks big time when they aren’t also in love with you at the same time. As far as advice for dealing with this situation – all I can say is get ready to endure a broken heart.

If you haven’t already been through it, prepare yourself for emotional anguish and physical pain. I still believe time heals all wounds – but some are much harder to get over than others.

If you’re one of the rare lucky ones, your best friend will be in love with you too, and the timing will be right. If that happens, enjoy your best-friend, life-long marital bliss, and call me to tell me about it along the way so I can have a glimpse into that [mostly] perfect world.

Tags: Dating, heartbreak, love

Another New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve almost always seems to be such a let-down – especially when you live in a big city and make plans to go to a bar with your friends. Inevitably you pay a huge premium for the New Year’s Eve specials – which is usually anywhere from $70 to $150, depending where you go. The “special’ includes unlimited drinks for three or four hours, some sort of food or appetizers and a champagne toast at midnight. Waaaay overpriced – I could do the same thing at my apartment either alone or with friends for a grand total of about $50, if that.

I abstain from going out to bars on NYE, and usually have a few friends over to hang out, drink and watch the ball drop. This year, however, I was forced to do nothing at all thanks to the germs and dust in my home town, I found myself with a sinus headache and a clogged head on the morning of December 30th, and it didn’t go away for my drive back to the city on the 31st.

Consequently, I stayed in Ohio and watched college basketball with my parents, had two sips of champagne at midnight and went to bed at 12:30. When I woke up on New Year’s Day, I felt not-so-surprisingly refreshed. I drove back to Chicago that day and called a few of my city-dwelling friends who had done the bar packages the night before. None of them answered because – as I was later told – they all had the “party flu” and weren’t feeling quite up-to-snuff on the first day of 2010. It was then I realized the true extent of the over-hype surrounding what is actually just another day gone by on the calendar.

For anyone who doesn’t live in a city, a more low-key lifestyle may already be the norm. As a city-dweller for the whole of my post-college 20s to this point, I’ve found that the low-key aspects of suburban or small-town life become more sorely missed as the years go by. I reveled in my non-headache, healthy feeling state of mind on January 1st, completely satisfied with the fact that I had been “lame” on NYE.

Tags: new year's eve, Partying

The text you know you shouldn’t send, but you send it anyway

Mid-twenties dating is a complicated process. You’re constantly meeting people through work, friends of friends and even reconnecting with old friends/acquaintances you had in college or high school.

One thing I’ve learned about dating in your twenties is this: Do not take dating advice from your parents. They may try to trick you into believing they’ve been there – they know what it’s like, they know the signs of someone being interested. No. They lie.

I recently learned this the hard way, when, over a bottle of wine, my mom convinced me I should text message this guy I dated a year ago – long distance, which was ultimately the demise of the relationship. He wanted me, she swore, but he couldn’t have me on his terms (in his city, and all the time), so he cheated on me and ended things – as amicably as possible.

Okay, I thought. Sure mom, maybe you’re right, I’ll give it a try – we’ll just see if he’s in town… It can’t hurt.

Three hours later, he texted me back saying he was out of town for Christmas – spending time with his girlfriend and her grandparents. Sweet, I thought, just what I wanted to hear.

Though he did say he wished we could hang out with a ‘bummer’ and an emoticon sad face. Stellar.

I told my mom what happened and she said, “Well, at least he got back to you. He’s probably still interested.” Come on, really?

On another note, I also recently had to tell my mom about an ongoing ‘relationship’ I’ve had since high school with this guy she knows (and adores). We decided this year at Christmas, we were going to get a hotel room for a night so we didn’t have to worry about families and things…

Well turns out I have a dog now, so I had to ask my mom if she’d be willing to take care of the pup for a night. She wanted to know why. That wasn’t an awkward conversation at all…

Tags: Dating

On Living in a City

For many college upperclassmen, the almighty internship rules – and may determine what happens in their first post-college year. I like to refer to that first year out of college as being a “life freshman.”

I’m currently in my senior year of life – and I’m not sure what happens after that.

It seems like a lot of college students who do have internships try to get jobs at the companies that hired them as interns. If this works out for you – great! You might be offered a job as a copy room bitch for some high-powered advertising firm or marketing agency in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago!

After I graduated college, I moved to Chicago immediately – for a shitty sales job that I ended up keeping only five months. By the end of my tenure at that job, I wished the bus would crash on the way to work so I didn’t have to go. That’s around the time I quit.

But city living is becoming a norm for many college graduates for a few reasons:

1. It’s where your friends go.
2. It’s easy to be single in a city.
3. You don’t need a car (probably).
4. It’s glamorous.

Ok, it’s glamorous at first – but after a few years, you realize the high prices of everything from rent to groceries might not be worth it. Or, you landed a sweet job and can afford to continue the lifestyle you’re accustomed to living. Lucky kid, you are.

In most major cities, having a car is totally unnecessary. Each neighborhood will have a dry cleaners, grocery store, drug store and a few bars. What more do you need?

There is always something going on in cities. If all your friends have plans and you don’t want to sit at home alone – never fear. There is something non-creepy that you can go do on your own and have a total blast.

Chances are, almost no matter where you’re coming from, someone you know from high school or college is going to end up in the same big city you’re in, as long as your city is in the U.S. – I mean, there are only so many cities in this country to land in after college.

After some time spent in a major U.S. city, I can safely say I still believe that the pros of living in a city outweight the pros of living not in a city. I’d rather stay urban and broke than rural and bored, with some money saved up… At least for now.