Moving in and Moving up

Our living area!

Well blogoshpere, I have officially moved into my new home...for the time being. It is my sophomore dorm. Everyone complains about their college dorm rooms, but I love mine a lot. It's so cute and I got all my decorations from the wonderful Ikea. I have a kitchen, a walk in closet, a living area, and a bedroom. Granted I have to share this space with one other person, but luckily we chose each other and we're friends, so fear not! I am happy.

Before I left I kept hearing from older and wiser sources telling me that sophomore year is ten times better than freshman year; that you meet your actual friends, and you finally find your place at university. Boy do I hope this is true. Freshman year was tough for me. I have always been a friendly outgoing person and never had difficulty in finding friends (although now that I reflect, maybe I made some questionable decisions in the early teen years). For some reason though, it just wasn't working out. For the first few months I completely fooled myself in thinking that I was okay with being "fake friends" with my roommates and the people on my floor, but soon it caught up to me and I was really upset. I loved my school and the city I was in, but I was missing out on good friends.

Soon I found that I was basically whoring myself out to find good people to hangout with. I was constantly the one texting a group of girls I found to be nice asking them to hangout and to get meals with me. They were great. Similar to me and I got a long really well with them. Today I guess I am part of their group. Freshman year ended with tears (from them) and happiness (from me) to get home to my true best friend. I don't look back and regret any of my freshman year because I do understand how lucky I am to have what I have. However I will definitely not give up on trying to find more friends.

That's why I go into sophomore year with an exciting buzz. Maybe I will find my future husband (hahahahah jokes) or maybe some more really great friends. Just last weekend I met a really cool brazilian girl who I definitely hit it off with right away. We have already gotten lunch and we have a class together so I'm hoping that it is a potential friend. The problem with my group of friends now is that they seem to have given up on finding anyone else and I'm kind of the opposite. I want to go out whenever I can and meet new people because in my eyes, every student, all 10,000 of them, is someone that could be a really special person in my life. It stinks that my friends now are settled because I am restless. I want more people than just six girls. I think it would be great to also add guys to our group.

I have always been much more into having guy friends because I seem to have better conversations with them, but guys don't really like to pursue a friendship with me because I am not "hot." I really thought this would end in college, but apparently it doesn't for me (I must be really ugly). I know that there are people, guys in particular, out there who would love me for me. I know this because I can feel it. I just have not stumbled upon those people yet. Sometimes it's really hard and I feel really low, but I keep trying. I'm not a giving up type.

So here's to a new year, a new semester, and a new me. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, but I really hope that my sophomore year is one of my best! Oh and I hope I get someone to snuggle with in my really comfortable bed!

Thanks for reading,
Molly

Growing Up

A few weeks ago I read a book called Girls in White Dresses. Seeing as I am obsessed with everything to do with weddings, I decided I would like it. And I did. Except it wasn't really about weddings. More of life after college and through your 20's and 30's. Basically it's a book about growing up which lately has been on my mind about 16/7 (the other 8 hours are designated for sleeping, but even then I sometimes have dreams about it). I am afraid. I said it. I am 19 years old and I am so so afraid of letting go of my childhood. To this day, I would rather drive in my parents car with them instead of taking my own car. This isn't because I hate driving, it's because I feel like a little kid again sitting in the back seat. I also cried for a week when my parents decided to paint my house last summer. To be fair, my whole life living in my house, it has been yellow with a green door and green shutters. They wanted to paint it white with a red door and black shutters. I mean that is a lot of change especially when you are about to leave for the scariest year of your life...Freshman year of college.

So back to growing up. Last night, I went out to dinner for a goodbye/birthday dinner for one of my close friends from high school. Sitting there watching and listening to everyone I started thinking that within the next ten years most of us would be married and some of us may even have kids. When you start having these thoughts you start having panic attacks (not really, again I am exaggerating). But I mean it is really scary stuff. The most contradicting thing about it though is the fact that ALL I do is talk about meeting my husband and having kids and how that will be the best times of my life. But nights like last night make me sit back and really think about it. Do I want to wish away nights of sitting in my best friends car until midnight singing at the top of our lungs and talking about growing up? No because maybe I am slowly realizing that not just one period of your life can be your "best years." I think that in the end it is the littlest moments that we will never forget because the smallest things make us the happiest.

I don't think I need to be afraid to grow up, I also don't think I need to focus so much of my attention on the future. I need to stop worrying that I am not going to have a husband ever and instead will live with my 18 cats (that will always be a fear, but I will continue to work on overcoming it). Because when I look at my life from the outside I am probably one of the luckiest people out there. I have a family that is crazy and quirky, but is perfect to me. I have found a soul mate in my best friend that I know will forever be there and I have been given opportunities that have opened my eyes to what the world has to offer. I don't think that there should be any fear left in me (except of spiders of course) because if my future, adult life is anything like the past 19 years then I am one lucky person.

Girls in White Dresses highlights every single fear that I discussed and in the end the books ends happily. Not a stupid cheesy ending where everyone is married and has 3 kids and a perfect job. No. Everyone is stable in what they are doing and they are happy even if their boyfriend only eats easy mac. It doen't matter because happiness is a powerful thing and you know what. Sitting at that dinner table last night and looking at the group of friends I have always taken for granted, I realized how truly happy I was to be there,  but also how excited I was to experience the future with them. I may have cried at the end of Girls in White Dresses but i don't think it was because I was scared, I think it was because I realized I could be any of the "Girls in White Dresses" and I would be happy.

Thanks for listening again, whoever you are. Remember to be yourself because that's when you'll truly be happy!

Lot's of love,
Molly

P.S. Read Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close. Hopefully you won't be disappointed.

The Quest to be Indie

Hey bloggers and random people who accidentally end up on my page, I just wanted to thank you for being here, no matter how you got here. This is my first post and it is inspired by something I did today that I am ashamed of, yet I think it may have been ultimately good for my psyche. Okay so that may be kind of extreme, but I am a teenager and I am allowed to exaggerate.

So today, while I was working at the carousel (yes I am a carousel attendant at the zoo) I decided to google "how to be indie." I admit, it was a low, even for me. For the past few months, maybe even years, I have wanted to change my style. Growing up in a place where the it item was either Lily Pulitzer, Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, or J. Crew really messed with my inner Molly. The styles I had thought defined me turned out to be styles that defined my town as a whole, so yeah blame me all you want, but I wanted a change. Ultimately, I think this all happened when I decided to go to GW. It is crawling with people trying to be hipster or indie and you know what, I wanted to try too.

After many trips to the Goodwill in the next town over, I slowly began to realize that you cannot just become indie. What even is indie? This all lead to my google search today. It brought me to a wikihow page with the title "How to be an Indie Girl in 5 Steps." I read this how to guide as the carousel went round and round and the carnival music that I've learned to block out played in the background. Of course the wiki said to dress like you don't care, but you actually do care and put a lot of effort into it. Wear crazy accessories that define you, wear your hair au natural (yeah right, have you ever heard of friz?), and listen to "Indie" music. Okay. Well...yeah easy enough. NOT.

I think that one of the things that stood out to me most on that wiki page was the actual definition of Indie and where it came from. Indie comes from Independent Record Label, which basically is all the people who wanted to play their music back in the day, but they wanted to do it their own way, to be different. Honestly, I applaud those people because they WERE different, but me trying to be Indie and follow the "suggested" way to be indie is the exact opposite of different and the philosophy of being independent.

I've finally realized that just because I wear flowing skirts with converse or vintage 90's sweaters with Doc Martens does not mean I am being Indie. However, if I do feel comfortable in quirky things like that, then that is ok. Sometimes I like to wear my pastel colored pants and sometimes I like to wear my DIY cuttoff jeans made from my dad's old college pants. Whatever as long as I am truly being myself and representing my inner "spirit" I don't care what I am wearing or what kind of style people think I have. I do know now that I am going to stick to the Indie Philosophy of being self representative; of showing my uniqueness because guess what? No one else is me.

Thanks for listening to me ramble and also coming on my quest to be indie. Hopefully you don't think I'm too crazy, but hey I'm me and that's all that matters.

Much love,
Molly

P.S. Here's the link to the wikihow...
http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Indie