Back to Baltimore

Today is March 8th, 2006.

Six weeks ago, I was sitting in my parent's house in Darien, CT working at a small business management/accounting firm with five 40-somethings at various stages of their lives: married, married with children, newly married; happy, somewhat happy, miserable; stressed, extremely stressed, dangerously stressed.

And I thought to myself, I am 23 years old. This is not my life right now.

I haven't even been out of college for one year. I am young and beautiful and fabulous. I want to be in an environment with people my age. I want to go to happy hours on Fridays and concerts on Saturdays. I want to have people around me whose biggest concern is not their child's after-school sports schedule. Don't get me wrong, I will always hold a special, albeit unique, place in my heart for my hometown. But Darien is a place for married people with children. It has good schools and good sports and other good practical qualities.

I don't want to be practical.

I want to be a little bit reckless, and a little bit irresponsible (which, if you know me, doesn't happen very often). But maybe that's the point. It should happen. I don't want to think about the consequences of every little thing I do. I want to make mistakes and learn from them and take risks and grow from them. I don't want to ask my parent's opinion on every decision I make. I don't want to feel like I have to take other people's advice. I want to be a young, independent, free-willed, strong-spirited woman.

And so I packed up my life (after I just unpacked it after college, too) and I moved back to Baltimore. No job. No income. No idea.

Scary? Yes. Intimidating? Absolutely.

Did I freak out when I got my health insurance bill, my credit card bill, and my electric bill all on the same day? Of course I did. Does it make me incredibly anxious to see the balances in my bank accounts getting lower? Um, yup.

But I'm dealing. I'm looking for a job. I have faith that I will find one where I can be an intelligent, capable, driven 23-year-old. Right now, I'm temping. It's not my life career goal, but it's fine. It lets me pay for my rent, my gas, my gym membership and my food. No, I don't get to indulge in things at the moment, but that's life. It's probably a good thing that even though my ipod crapped out on me and I have nothing to listen to when I go running, I can't afford to spend $300 on a new one right now. If that's my biggest problem, I'm in pretty good shape.

There are things I do get out of the deal, like living in close proximity to some of my closest friends in the world or getting to go sit in Alumni Memorial Chapel anytime I want. I get to meet new people and discover new places. I get to have my own apartment and all the responsibilities that come with that. That's exciting.

So I'm clearly a little late on this blog thing, but that's okay. I'm not really good with timetables. I didn't graduate college with a job and a career and a plan. I still don't have those things. That's okay. Everyone has to march to the beat of their own drummer. I want to dance to mine.

I'm going to use this venue to write about whatever is on my mind. From how I feel about Nelly's new song (um, "Grillz"? What?) to Dana Reeve's death (tragedy really does not discriminate). Read, react, refute ... I welcome any and all feedback.

But this is me. Young and unconstrained. And Back in Baltimore.