Life as we know it: not what I imagined.

I really need to get better at updating this thing. Too much happens when I don't write for several months at a time.

Well... let's start here: Grandad Tom passed away in August. That was pretty awful. Death and funerals are probably two of the things I hate most in this world. I am very glad that he doesn't have to put up with all the pain he had been in the last ten years, or deal with the fact that his mobility was diminished to basically nothing, or that he was home-bound. I'm glad he doesn't have to go through any of that anymore. I am sad that he's gone though. I still think about him a lot, and hope that he's watching over me. Still miss you every day, Grandad.

So there's that. Grandma is coping, kind of, which breaks my heart even more sometimes. It's not that she doesn't want to, it's that her memory is fading. Losing time and faces is much more sad to me than death. Dementia is a slow, terrible way to become a shell of who you were. The more I think about that kind of stuff, the more I keep saying that being a grown-up is the worst. Because you realize everything, you internalize it, you understand how terrible things can be. Ignorance is bliss.

The other fairly large development in my life is that I decided to put school off for another little while. For two reasons: school blows, let's be real. And, I just want to be 100% sure that being a nurse practitioner is what I want to do for the rest of my life. So, I am "quitting life" as I've been telling people, and taking an epic trip starting at the end of my six month lease. Which, HOLY CRAP a six-month lease is so expensive. Ugh. Money will be tight, but at least it will only be for six months. Oy. 

I've never been one to just "let go and go where the wind will blow", but that's what I'm going to do. 

I've also tried to make peace with the fact that I'm going at my own pace. I'm not in a relationship, which kind of blows sometimes. I don't own a house, I don't have a baby, I don't have any of the things that are supposed to make us "adults". I'm starting to be OK with that. I don't need to fit into some box that a 25-year-old woman is supposed to fit into. I have a great job, a decent head on my shoulders, and dreams to go places. So that's what I'll do. I don't need to be "making investments" in a mortgage, I need to be investing in education, in broadening my horizons, in creating stories for my future kids/grandkids/nieces/nephews to marvel at when I'm too old and attached to do them anymore. Not having things. Things disappear. Life will too if you don't stop to experience it. 

I don't know where I'll end up, or who I'll meet, but I know that I need some time and some space to really figure out what I want. It's incredibly scary, and totally outside the scared little box I've been living in the past two years since graduation, but I'm trying to live by the phrase, do one thing every day that scares you. I'm sure scared, but I'm also full of hope. Let's see where the wind blows.