It's been a long time. Are blogs still a thing? Well, whether they are or not, most of the people who followed mine have long since moved on so I guess there's no harm in updating what is, for all intents and purposes, a virtual diary that no one else is likely to ever read.
I just spent the better part of the afternoon reading all of my previous blog entires. The most recent one was written over 3 years ago. How crazy is that? But what's crazier is that the whole time I was reading, I could feel so viscerally the exact same feelings I felt 3 - 5 years ago while I was writing them for the first time. So viscerally, in fact, that after I was done, I had to take a few minutes to readjust to the world I live in now and the person I am now. It was like a weird, virtual time machine, and I was experiencing severe time travel jet lag.
[Disclaimer: I feel like I should apologize here to Heather, if you're reading this, because this is a total plagiarism of the conversation we just had.]
But. I'm back now. And for my first entry, I think what I want to write about is change.
So much has changed since February 4, 2011. I've ended and begun relationships, gotten into grad school, graduated from college, had my heart broken yet again, finished grad school, moved away from Indiana, from the Midwest for the first time ever and traveled hundreds of miles to find myself trying to settle into a new life in New York. But more about my tortured past and exciting, new Carrie Bradshaw-esque life later (that is a joke, bloggers; designer shoes and promiscuous, serial dating are the furthest things from my current reality).
What strikes me the hardest is how clueless 2009-2011 Jessie was about what was to come. And it's not her fault; how could she know? I think she admits and possibly even perseverates on the sense of uncertainty about the future repeatedly in her version of this blog, so at least she was aware of her complete and utter ignorance toward her future.
A friend (Spoiler alert: Again, Heather) asked me what I would say to that Jessie if I could go back. Here is what I've come up with:
1. You’re going to be sad and things are going to suck sometimes, but it will always get better. And it will also always get worse, but that’s life.
The problems you've had in the past and the problems you have now will always matter in some way, but a few years down the road they will seem so distant, you won't even believe they happened to you. And those problems will be replaced with new problems that seem much more pressing and much harder compared to the old ones. But you'll get through them just like you did before and things will work out. They always do. It's never as bad as it seems. And the hurt, the pain and heartbreak you've felt and still do feel (you may have everyone else fooled, 2011 Jessie, but you can't lie to me) will eventually go away. Or it will get covered up by new hurt, new heartbreaks, but when it does, please remember: You got through this once (or twice or however many times). It cut you deeper than you'd ever been cut, and you wanted to be completely numb and sleep until it was all forgotten, but slowly, things got better and you started to feel good again. Eventually, you healed. And I'll let you in on a secret: Me, right now, in 2014 - I'm hurt too, not by the same things that hurt you, but I hurt just the same. And reading about and remembering your pain, I wish I had been reminded of it so much sooner. Because this reminder, the push to keep going and to get through the bad and move on to the good, even when you can't see it, it's just as much for me as it is for you.
2. Don't lose your spirit of adventure and hope, your simultaneous fear and excitement about what comes next.
I've been struggling with this a lot lately. Now that I'm done with school, now that I'm an "adult" (emphasis on the first syllable, you know, the way parents and high school teachers say it), I feel this incredible pressure to get my life together and figure out what comes next. I don't know if I've said this out loud before, but I feel a little bit like I'm failing at this crucial transition in life, with very little money and no definite job prospects. I feel lazy and useless and unfulfilled, and I know that it's just a matter of time and that I'm experiencing now what many people experience right out of college. But you know, I made this big, bold decision to move away, far away, and "pursue my dreams" and "follow love" and blah blah blah, and it just seems like my life isn't as big or as bold as everyone thinks it should be, including me. Everyone keeps saying that the fact that I've had 10+ interviews in 5 months and in the current job market is a good sign, and that I'm going to find something soon, and I know that they're right and I appreciate it. But right now, it just sort of feels like 10+ rejections. Like I've just been dumped by 10+ boyfriends who, granted, I hadn't known for very long and wasn't very serious about, but like every girl does, I was starting to imagine our 10+ lives together and picking out window treatments and naming our children, and so yeah, it hurt when they broke it off. And truthfully, it has been a blow to my perfect score-getting, dramatic lead-having, Academic Honors, High School wunderkind ego.
That being said, I've made a lot of friends and connections and learned so much about the craft I'm passionate about and the field I thought I had figured out. And I've seen four Broadway musicals and promoted a live on VH1 concert and worked for a Tony Award-winning theatre, so FINE YOU'RE RIGHT, I've done relatively well, but just LET ME FEEL MY FEELINGS OKAY.
Anyway. The point is, past Jessie, despite how very lost she was at times, never lost her sense of wonder, and I need to work on finding that again. I need to work on not getting so bogged down in the uncertainty and panic I feel and the "Oh my God I'm going to run out of money and never get a job and have to work at Starbucks or live on the streets" and just be excited about where I am and what I'm doing and the future I can't imagine right now. I need to remember how I felt an hour or so ago, returning from my time travel, that it all has changed so much and I wish I could have known.
I need to keep telling myself that just like past Jessie, you will figure it out and it will all seem so simple and unimportant when you do. You'll be okay.
You know, they're right, whoever "they" are. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
