Cheers to One Year

Happy anniversary, LA. To be honest, I didn’t think we’d make it this long when I first arrived. It’s raining just like it was the day I first drove into the city after days packed into my Jeep Renegade with all my stuff, my dog, and two other people. It’s been a crazy year of growth and coming to realizations that I would never have imagined on the horizon that day. I completed my graduate degree and I finished it strong, which I’m so proud of from having a history of slowing down before fully crossing the finish line.

20170617_212458 — I will never let go of the child inside me

20170729_072900 — Graduating meant a well-deserved vacation

I live somewhere different now and I’m getting ready to move again within the next couple of months. I still have my moments of questioning if I should move back east, but for now, every part of me wants to be here when I sit down and fully think of it. Michael moved in with me. I was able to visit home once and some many people came to visit me.

20170514_173306 — My aunt and I at Absinthe

20170416_213550 — Shout out to these two for bringing me furniture when I was living out of plastic tubs

20170305_152259 — My other half made it across the country to see me

TRPT701102491172 — These two deserve medals for moving me countless times and across countless miles

Moving here has made me so thankful for where I grew up, who I grew up, and who raised me. Once the majority of the Media Ventures kids headed back to wherever they call home, it hit me that I don’t have a big support group here. I have difficulty making friends when it’s short interactions like events or at bars. I’ve written about it before and it surely hasn’t changed. It has made me realize that I haven’t given up on any of the things I believe in to be better liked in LA. It’s a hard city to make friends in that are going to be there and that you fully click with if this lavish lifestyle isn’t something you are used to or have any desire to live. I want to start Justus Tickets because I want to see more diversity at shows and to see the fans that music was made for in the audience. It’s to get those fans that you see holding signs of how music saved their lives into that audience more often. It’s not about the money. Don’t get me wrong, it would be nice if it succeeds, but that isn’t what drives me for that or anything in life.

20170914_212525 — I’m so happy he moved here and I have someone to enjoy daily things with

We’ll always find time to get out of the city

20170909_213215 — Sometimes you drive an hour to the fair because it’s something that reminds you of your small town

20170610_151304 — I still notice the smallest things and take time to connect with things that make me feel like myself

20170422_184601 — My number one companion

I’m working on becoming more patient, which is harder and easier in this constantly moving city. There’s one side of it that is so urgent and so nonstop, but at the same time, California has such a sense of relaxation to it. People that are willing to slow down in order to take care of themselves so they are producing the best things they can. Being patient while still working towards your goals pays off and there is no better example than Mike recently being featured in a Vice article. He impresses me every day with his balance of his job that pays him and finding time for what he would rather be paid for. Life’s different than I ever would have imagined it and even with it being different, I can’t wait to see where I’ll be in another year. For now, I’m happy to call you home, LA.

20171130_193428 — It was my first Christmas not in Uniontown, but I spent it with my new family and was happier than I ever would have expected.

Looking forward responsibly

Happy 2018 to those that have reached it (we still have a couple hours of 2017 left here on the west coast.) The New Year is the perfect time to reflect back on the year and decide what you want to stay the same and what changes need to be made for the upcoming year. On Twitter lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about what people tend to leave behind and some left me unsettled.

I understand wanting to make better changes, but one thing that can quickly ruin a new outlook on the year is setting really unrealistic goals. One of the biggest that I saw were people saying that they were “leaving” their depression, anxiety, and various other mental health issues in 2017. This idea has even been supported by some of my favorite mental health organizations and advocates. But here’s the thing, mental health illnesses aren’t those clothes you don’t wear or bad habits.

For me, it feels like a very destructive discourse to let people feel that these things can be left behind. You can be doing everything right like talking to a therapist regularly, taking your medicine, or keeping up with whatever self-care routine works for you and still have really bad days. Making it a resolution or saying that you were leaving those things behind can make it so much harder to get through your bad days because not only are you having a bad day, but you failed at keeping a resolution or goal for the entire year. I know when those type of things happen for me where I feel like I failed on something big like that, then it can lead me to spiral a little bit.

There’s nothing wrong with setting goals/making resolutions, but don’t let the chatter on social media or from those around you to set unrealistic goals. Mental illnesses don’t ever “go away” or are “left behind,” but they are manageable. Make your goals surrounding what you’re going to do to manage them, how you’ll deal with bad days, and forgive yourself if 2018 doesn’t go exactly as planned. I know 2017 didn’t go exactly as I planned, but all you can do is continue forward with a plan to do better, thank your past self for the experiences, and also forgive yourself for the not great stuff.

That’s what I’ll be keeping in mind while I set my goals and resolutions for 2018. Feel free to share yours, share your stories, or let me know how you plan on forgiving your past self in order to move forward.

Happy New Year! I’m glad we all made it another year.

Sticking with a hobby

Recently, my boyfriend suggested to me that I need to find a hobby that I can dedicate myself too. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and why I don’t really have one that I’m deeply passionate about despite being involved in a lot of different things. It really comes down to two things one that isn’t a problem, but that has helped me on my path in life and the other which is definitely a problem that I need to work.

The first being that I’ve always had such an interest in learning new things and discovering new information. This is what lead me to choose my graduate program and what brought me to where I am now. It keeps me going and always striving to improve myself in some way, but sometimes it means I dive into things that I don’t always finish.

That brings me to the second aspect of what keeps me from really excelling at dedicating myself to any of my hobbies. I struggle with sticking with things through when I feel inadequate at them. When photography was one of my main focuses it would be extremely frustrating that I did not edit well so if I didn’t get it right in camera, then that’s where it ended for me. It has kept me from sticking with a lot of things and it’s the biggest thing I want to work on personally right now.

I plan on finding a guitar I can start practicing again. I played when I was younger but didn’t stick with it. I love music and people are always surprised with how passionate I am about it that I don’t play any instruments. It’s somewhere start. I’m not looking to be perfect, but to be able to get past my issues with giving things up before I can grow with them.

I know it won’t just give me a great hobby, but help me elsewhere in my life as well. If you know any sites, videos, etc. for learning guitar, then send them my way!

Writing When Writing Doesn’t Make Sense

I hope that even if one day I’m really successful that no one feels the need to write a biography about me. They would probably have to find 8 million things to figure out where I was deciding to write things down at a certain time. I write when I’m stressed and I write when good things happen. Sometimes it feels right to have in it this public of a space and sometimes it doesn’t. Lately, it’s been in my journal or in my Passion Planner that I’ve mentioned before.

Since the last time I wrote anything on here, I moved, started and finished a new internship with Bkstg, finished my graduate program, started working on launching my thesis project as a business, and my boyfriend moved in. Those are a lot of big updates that I didn’t share and instead just wrote down in my journal or elsewhere.

It isn’t because I didn’t want to share them, but instead, wasn’t sure how. “Write for your blog” has been on my to-do list for about a month now and I’d accomplish everything else and be left staring at those four words. I didn’t know how and couldn’t understand why.

Writing for me has always been a cathartic process for better or worse, but recently I’ve been handling relationships and self-care better. I didn’t feel the need to write to people I didn’t know. It scared me when I started feeling like I needed to write again. The first thought was that I was falling back into a depressive state. I knew that I ignored it last time from re-reading my journal and didn’t want to this time. I focused on reaching out to

I focused on reaching out to friends and family because after 24 years here I finally realized that the people that love me want to know what’s going on in my life whether it’s good or bad. I knew I wasn’t letting myself fall back to where I was but still felt a desire to write.

About what though? That’s where I am now. I have no idea how or what I want to write about moving forward. It is this weird state of confliction that I feel about the majority of things in my life right now.

I don’t know what I am going to write or what this blog will look like in three months, but I am determined to write if my brain says write. I hope you enjoy whatever comes next.

First week in LA: Complete

My first week in LA is over, which is insane. I still feel like I just got here. The week was so nice and I am starting to settle in and adjust to the area. The driving isn’t bad, but it’ll be a lot easier once I know where I’m going without a GPS. I love my apartment, but with the owner leaving a lot of decorations it’s hard to make it feel like mine.

I’ve been able to explore a little more and I am so in love with the west coast. The Media Ventueres crew took a trip to Santa Monica, visited the Getty Museum, and were able to check out some restaurants and bars.

I’ve been trying to walk around my neighborhood to get to know the area more and to figure out a nice walking route for Luna. Today, we were able to go on our first hike. That also meant driving on the PCH for the first time to get there. It was absolutely beautiful and the views from the hike were stunning.

View from my car after finishing the hike

I cannot wait to see what else this amazing place brings me.

PA ➡ CA

I made it! Here I am in LA for my second semester of grad school. Driving across the country was not what I always romanticized it to be, but maybe it was because we didn’t have a lot of time and also had a dog with it. It was just breathtaking though. I would sit in the car and just stare out the window because I’ve never seen landscapes like some of the ones I experienced.

I’ve been here for 3 days now and I’m settling in pretty well. It’s been harder than any of my other moves in my life because there isn’t a plan or date for when I’ll be going “home.” I don’t know if it even makes sense to call it home since I spend so little time there. I am loving it though and I know once I have more going on and I learn my way and around the city, then it will feel more real.

I am so excited to be here. If anyone has suggestions on places to go, things to see, day trips, weekend trips or anything for LA, please share!

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One semester down. Off to another

Better late than never, right? I’ve been done with my first semester of grad school for almost a month now and I am currently boogeying across the states to get ready to start my second. I’m finally driving all the way across the country (I promise I’ll make a post all about it once I get to California.)

But back to the real reason I’m writing and that is to talk about how this semester went. I am pleased to report that I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I was on such a perfect path in life until this I started my grad program. Boston felt perfect. I love the people in my program. Everything seems like it is just falling into its correct place.

My Boston home will always have a big chunk of my heart

It wasn’t always smiles and rainbows, but it got done and I actually did a lot better than I expected. I am even now leaning towards pursuing starting my company that is my thesis project after I finish my degree.

How insane is that? I left for this program thinking I would just cruise through the year and set myself up for a better career. Now, I have the confidence to pursue being an entrepreneur and have such amazing relationships whether they are new or old.

Got to show off Boston to a lot of friends, but also family like my aunt and sister

I absolutely fell in love with Boston. I was so excited that so many people I love were able to come up and visit. I was only there for four months and I was able to do so much. I do really enjoy this more nomadic lifestyle of being in places for just short amounts of time. We’ll see where that leads me.

I was able to have some great adventures in my four months. Diving with seals was probably my favorite

All I can do now is just keep trucking down this path that life has me on and smile at wherever I end up. Set on the present, but eager for being in LA and seeing where 2017 takes me.

All Over the Place

Hi world, especially humans that keep coming here even though I’ve been slacking so hard on my personal blog.

I started writing for Pairade over at The Collective. I’ll probably be there more often than not, but I’ll still be sharing here as much as I can.

Check out my articles for them here.

Bad news on top of bad news

A close friend of mine has recently shared a story with me that was upsetting just to hear let alone live through. His step sister had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had to miss work for the appointments that could be saving her life. The company she works for, U.S. Bank, made the decision to let her go stating that it was on the grounds of her missing too much work.

I am no lawyer or anything of that sort, but things do not just seem to add up. It seems that something of this degree should be protected. No one needs to lose their job after already being dealt absolutely devastating news. If you have any advice for where to turn to, what to do, etc., please let me know and I will pass it on to them. It has been shared a lot through my whole friend group’s social media accounts so I thought I would come reach out to the WordPress community for any help or support.

If you want to help, please let U.S. Bank know that this decision is not commendable, provide support or advice for how to deal with this situation, or donate to her GoFundMe. To see this during a month that is so focused on supporting those battling against, recovered from, or those that have lost their fight with breast cancer makes me feel like so many efforts for this disease go unnoticed.

I will be doing all I can to help see this situation end in a favorable and helpful manner not just to Maureen, but to help a company see how their practices can hurt people and to improve their relationship with employees.

Keeping my head in the clouds

I like people who embrace their peculiarities, who aren’t afraid of drawing unwanted attention and would never dare soften their strangeness for others. People who demand their dreams into existence and speak thoughtfully and live passionately without reserve or reluctance. -Beau Taplin

I was told a very important thing a couple of days ago and I guess I’ve heard it my whole life, but it comes so seldom that sometimes I forget. That is to trust myself and to trust my ideas when I have faith in them. My whole life I’ve been told things like that I’m a waste of potential or that I could do so much more with my intelligence, but why can’t I use it the way I want to? I’ve been told that my personality wouldn’t fit into an office setting (because I have tattoos or cuss like a sailor or yadda yadda blah blah) or that I wouldn’t do well in grad school for one reason or the other. There’s always so many people telling you no whether they are trying to protect you or break you down that it is easy to forget people that support you. I have managed to do all of those and there is no reason to stop believing in myself now.

There could be someone out there that is desperately waiting for your idea or project or music. At some point, you will have to take that step to say that you know what you are doing and go for it. Will it always work out? Absolutely not, but it gets you one step closer to exactly where you are supposed to be. Do not give up who you are or what you love to be safe or please others. Demand your dream into existence as Beau says. At the end of the day, you are the number one thing you have and if you cannot be happy, then what is the point?

So, I’ll be over here with my head in the clouds thinking of some more ideas that people will tell me will never work just so I can prove them wrong (at least on some of them).