“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” Eleanor Roosevelt
And so today, begins an experiment.
"There are so many things about being a twenty-something-year old girl that aren't talked about," she said. And though it was the first time I was meeting my cousin's girlfriend and I had already warmed to her choice of local pizzeria, I knew I liked her. And that she was right.
In conversations with my peers, I am continually struck by the poignancy of this time period - that bridge between twenty-two and thirty-something, when we've been dumped into the mainstream of real life, told the world is our oyster, hold our breath, close our eyes and do the best we can to swim. It's increasingly a decade where all flavors are possible - employed or student, newly engaged or a match.com profile, investing yourself in a career or project you've chosen or floating along until you find that right fit. You can be living with friends or with boyfriends, crashing with parents or trying it solo. You can be planning a +1 to your new family, or hoping you'll have a +1 to your next friend's wedding. And as we learn all too quickly, there's no real instruction manual or "right" way to do it. It seems to be how this roller-coaster works - truly, anything goes.
The snapshots of how we work it out differ, yet there is something inherent to our "working it out" that is beautiful and unique to being a twenty-something-year-old female. Something stunning and raw in our questions, our blunders, in our adventures, our quests.
As a new 26-year-old grad student in a program of 41 females (poor solitary guy didn't know what he as in for), this blog is meant to capture a sliver of what sets us apart. A way that we think about, hope for, see things, that is - signed, sealed, and delivered - uniquely our own. To look at that which makes us tick, what makes us crumple, what makes us laugh until our cheeks hurt and what makes us want to lie down and nap.. and in our best days, those in-between moments that make us want to stretch our arms up to the sky.
