Nobody puts baillee in the corner

Being in your early 20s is delightfully weird. I officially graduated high school six years ago (fingers crossed everyone read my reunion post and won’t invite me to the 10 year reunion), so I’ve reached the point where I identify with many a’ post grad indie movie character. I work at a quirky ice cream store,  I live in an apartment that’s decorated with movie posters and pop culture artifacts, and my friends and I are a bunch of creative types who are trying to make it. If I wasn’t working the keyboard right now, this would write itself. I’ll spare you more cliches (including the one where I have a Van Gogh tapestry above my bed) and skip to what we in the biz (and by biz, I mean it’s a phrase one of my beloved English professors used excessively, and this is my weird way of honoring her) call the meat and potatoes.

Like I mentioned in the lede that hopefully hooked you (shout out to every high school English class ever), being 23 is really weird. I have little to no control over my life. I’m so single that Protozoa are trying to set me up with their friends. (Remember how I said I had no idea what I was doing? Well, that awful single celled organism joke should prove it to eu-karyote. Please forgive me). I barely pay all of my bills and rent every month. I scribble down ideas for pieces on receipt paper and napkins. It’s a beautiful, stressful time.

As my array of facial expressions while scrolling through my Facebook feed has taught me, I’m definitely not ready to start a family like some of more mature friends have. I’m also definitely not ready to get married because I like my 90s flower ring too much to replace it with anything. I’m not even ready to move in with someone because I have yet to trust a dryer with most of my clothes, and I wait until the last possible moment to do laundry, so my bedroom is splayed with wet clothing for days at a time and in no way leaves room for another human being. (Plus, I’d have to run the idea by all of my stuffed animals, and I’m not ready to open that can of worms).

So what now? I’m definitely not a hookup kind of girl (see the ear suckling fiasco that still plagues me to this very day). I guess I’ve reached the point where I want to start a relationship about eight months in. I want to bypass checking my love horoscope religiously to see if today is the day or trying to decipher every single sentence down the Oxford comma (which I am a firm believer in, thank you). I think I want a simple “Hey, I like you from someone” immediately followed by a cut to a year in the future. You know, how real life works.

Job wise, I’m comfortable but not in a bad way. It’s a sweet gig (no pun intended). Sure, I’ve shed a lot of tears behind that counter, but I have an amazing staff that never fail to simultaneously give me both gray hairs and put a smile on my face. I was describing each and everyone of them to a friend last night, and I realized how absolutely incredible they are. I felt very much like Cher Horowitz discussing how each and every person in your life contributes something different and important. It was cheesy and perfect, and I’m not talking about the queso I was scarfing down while having this conversation. (Gouda one, right)?

Basically, I’m winging everything in life down to my eyeliner. I have no idea what the future holds, but I do know I’ve made it this far. I’ve survived elementary school with a chili bowl, more middle school angst than I knew how to deal with, attending a small town high school,  and four years consuming so much caffeine that I’m surprised I still have stomach lining. Stay tuned, my dear readers, and keep listening to “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World like I am.