The Comfy Corner

Everyone says that the first year out of college is the toughest. There are still traces of cheap beer and poor choices flowing through your veins and you are caught in a post-collegiate whirlwind of life decisions and experiences and it is tough to know where to cast the proverbial net. But for me, that wasn't necessarily true. I got a fun, degree-related job right out of college, I went straight into a meaningful relationship, I was doing what I love with people I loved, I was WALKING ON AIR! But then, earlier this year, everything made a giant shift. My relationship ended, my enthusiasm for my work started to deteriorate, the world around me that once felt so small, manageable, and neat started to grow bigger and more daunting and more unorganized. It happens to everyone and it had finally happened to me; I was hit with a major case of the twentysomethings.

I'm not proud to admit it, but I spent two weeks in June paying for my meals with quarters that I had found in my room (thank Gods for dollar pizza) and literally surviving off of the food my restaurant job was giving me. It was a bleak time, sure, but I felt too proud, too determined to ask my family or friends for help. I knew that I could push through it. I felt in my heart that this was a struggle I needed to go through in order to really bring myself up. I thought, "You can't rise to the top if you don't know where the bottom is. " And I had found bottom. I may or may not have spent an entire evening by myself (under the influence of some recreational anesthesia) watching wedding proposal videos and sobbing uncontrollably. Bottom. So what I did was I picked myself up by my bootstraps and labeled this past summer the #SummerofChang. My job started paying me more money so I started eating real food again. I explored every beach within reach of NYC. I painted my living room walls and bought new pants. I booked a show in Maine and went there for a month and made some amazing friends. I was, for the first time in my adult life, figuring out who I was, by myself, for myself.

It feels weird to admit that you don't know who you are. But I did that. I admitted that I wasn't sure who I was or what I wanted. And that is what your twenties seem to be all about, right? Uncertainty. I am certainly certain that everyone has felt uncertain about their lives in their twenties.  And now, though I am in a much better place than I was earlier in the year, I still don't really know where I am going but I feel much more confident in the man that is going there. Wherever "there" is. And I can literally feel the neurons in my brain rearranging themselves to become that of an adult brain. Two days ago I poured out a bottle of champagne because I knew it was cheap and would give me a headache. Two years ago I would have drank the entire bottle no problem. I know now that a Bourgogne wine is from Bergundy, France. And I know that I like wines from that region of France. I know that my favorite Bourbon is Basil Hayden and I like to get my produce from Whole Foods. Brick by brick I am putting myself together. And for all of you twentysomethings reading this, you gotta do it. Dude, I get it, it's a tough decade. It's lonely and confusing but it is also a crucial period of self discovery and you gotta make sure that you end up liking the person that you discover. As Dr. Meg Jay, author of "The Defining Decade" says, "There are no guarantees. So claim your adulthood. Be Intentional. Get to work. Pick your family. Do the math. Make your own certainty. Don't be defined by what you didn't know or didn't do." Stay comfy y'all.