A Beautiful Mess

Welp, it’s been awhile but man has my life been a whirlwind since January. All I can say is that in the last 7 months I have learned a lot about myself and I’m not sure I’ve seen things this clearly in a long time. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make the career move I needed to make and move to Waco, however for various other reasons I thought moving home was going to be extremely hard/boring/depressing after 5 years on my own.  I didn’t want to leave the city life, concerts, meeting new people, my best friend/roommate, shopping, restaurants, my phenomenal/dream of an apartment, etc. In retrospect, the only thing I miss is my best friend/roommate and having my own place. What I realized once I left everything that I thought was so amazing is that in reality I created a mini-Waco within Dallas. We were the same group of friends from college/high school transplanted in Dallas, going to the same bars even though there were 50 more to choose from, and going to the same restaurants week in and week out. While there’s nothing wrong with that, I now realize….Waco isn’t THAT bad.

Waco may not have the glitz and glam of Dallas, the great shopping, or the great restaurants…BUT it does have some great local spots, a few fun bars, and you don’t spend HALF the money. It’s like a Cheers episode…everyone knows your name or knows you through someone. The hardest part about moving back for me was that people thought I couldn’t handle Dallas as a big city. I was young while I was in Chicago, but let me tell you….Dallas is NOT a “big” city and not near the reason I came home. It’s tough to explain to people and everyone wonders why I am back with a 4 year degree, living  at home, working at the family restaurant and still job searching …but to be honest it’s exactly where I am meant to be right now and things are slowly falling into place for me. The last 5 months for my family have been excessively stressful to the point where I don’t expect anyone to even begin to comprehend what we’ve been going through. The factors all playing into our lives; job situations, health problems, HUGE/ possibly life changing decisions and a lot of personal things; is why I need to be right where I am.

With all of that said…I have had the time of my life the past few months. I know, time of my life in Waco? Yeah right…but truly I have. Not only do I still see a few old friends but I have so many new friends and people in my life that may not be my best friends, may not know the “me” that all my old friends knew (hat, tshirt, jeans, basketball or golf club in hand) but I’m having a lot of fun and meeting a lot of really incredible people. Who knew? I wouldn’t change moving back to Waco at this point in my life for the world. There are a few extremely special people in my life right now that I have learned some extremely character defining lessons from purely  from experience…. not them sitting me down and “teaching me a lesson” or even telling me anything particular, in fact they probably have no idea the impact they have made. Now, knowing what I know, experiencing what I’ve experienced, I really hope I can pass it on to my younger sister and younger friends in my life because I was in the place they are not long ago.  The place where you start wondering what am I supposed to be doing? College is over; I’m back home, what now? Do I go back to school? Is this the job I really want to have the rest of my life? Why is everyone else getting married?....stop thinking about it! The greatest things I’ve learned, through one incredible person….is that things will work out, give it time, be patient and trust. Whether it works out how you wanted it to or not you can’t force anything to happen… no matter how hard you try. And truth is…if you have to force it, it’s probably not worth it or meant to be anyway.

Right now I’m getting extremely anxious for the Fall. Obviously for the weather, but also for the holidays, football games, the fair & rodeo, concerts, etc…and hopefully landing this position that couldn’t be more perfect for me…I’m pretty sure I know exactly what I want out of life, what’s really important to me, and that you TRULY don’t need to sweat the small stuff….I will keep you all posted…sorry it’s been so long I’ll try to keep up with this thing more (Caroline!)…


XoXo Ya Digg?!