But can you blame me? Until tomorrow, folks!

(BEDA: April 14, 2013)

But I still love wrist tattoos, so I collect images of them on Pinterest to keep me satisfied. Also, the narrator of the novel-in-progress has a tattoo on each wrist. I collect these images, also, as inspiration for her.

If you couldn’t tell, I am also a very big fan of birds and feathers and the like.

(BEDA: April 13, 2013)

and also getting my Aggie ring, which is a pretty darn big deal. So until tomorrow, when I’ll have something more interesting to say…

But so was graduating high school and going to college. So was taking that job that paid rent and bought groceries. So was that first relationship outside the bounds of teenage melodrama and gossiping girls. So was your 21st birthday. (Well, Kenz, you don’t know about this one yet.)

I realized, though, that this year — 2013 — this is the first year, despite all my baby steps into adulthood, that I really feel like I’m being an adult. Not just sometimes, not just in certain situations, not just with certain decisions. But all the time. All the time I am an adult.

So I thought about why.

Why, when I’ve had adult decisions and adult consequences since that magical 18th birthday, do I just now feel like a full-time adult?

1. I’m graduating with my Masters degree.

Pardon the clip art. With my Masters degree, I’m stepping out after graduation with the intention of starting my career. Before graduate school, I applied for a job that I ended up loving but was more about new experiences and paying rent & bills. I never intended to stay in the job or the field (IT). 

But with my Masters, this is it. This is the beginning of my career and that’s thrilling & terrifying all at once.

(This is not to say people do not start their careers after their Bachelor’s degrees. Plenty of people do. But I always intended to get a Masters degree and as I want my career to be in academia, this was a required step.)

2. I’m turning 25. 

I’m smack in the middle of my twenties. There is just something about this age, to me, that sounds adult. It’s a bit inexplicable, maybe. 

When I turned 18, I could say I was an adult. But at 25, others see me as an adult. It’s in the way other adults interact with me. It’s in the way my students ask me about the next steps of their adult lives. It’s in the way I remember, vividly, thinking my 25-year-old just-got-his-Masters-degree history teacher in high school was just so much older than me while still being so much younger than all the other teachers.

3. I’m getting married. 

Which is major. Even though I’ve been with my fiance for over 5 years, we are really and truly beginning our lives together. Not our lives near each other, revolving around each other, like two separate suns. But our lives, inseparable, for the rest of time, (I couldn’t think of an appropriate astronomical metaphor here).

I’m thrilled for our wedding, for our honeymoon, for our first year of marriage (though I know it will be a challenge).

As a quiet, but devoted Christian, marriage means certain things to me and carries a particular weight with me. I know it carries the same meaning with my fiance. And it’s that we’ve made this decision, together. We’re defining ourselves as a pair, as our own family beginning.

These three events in this year are why I feel, finally, like a full time adult. Which is not to say that others don’t feel like adults younger than me or older than me, and I don’t discount their adult experiences. For me, I find myself unexpectedly being an adult, but this year I finally don’t feel like I’m faking it most of the time. I just feel like being an adult is just a part of my identity.

I am an adult.

No two ways about that anymore.

(BEDA: April 11, 2013)

I think I did a decent job of finding brown hair that’s poof-y enough to match my poodle-style hair and of course I kept the glasses. I never ever wear skirts nor do I own an off-the-shoulder shirt, but I would own the shirt and green is fun! I totally own those shoes (who doesn’t have black flats?) and obviously I carry leather-bound books with me everywhere. (Not really. Other books, yes.)

In days past, when I was a much younger creative writer, I used these doll generators frequently to imagine up my characters. It was a little more true to what was in my head. But still, it’s worth noting how these kinds of generators, especially ones modeled after Disney princesses, are extending problematic notions of gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. Because they do.

None the less, I just made me, the Disney Princess. I wonder if I should have gone for the tiara?

(BEDA: April 10, 2013)

P.S. I also made a ballerina version of me! (I really get into these silly things.)

Also, Harry Potter. (Yes, I’m in Slytherin.)

I’m a pro at french braiding, so it’s kind of shame that I haven’t gone outside my braiding comfort zone. Once upon a time (my freshman year of college), braiding my hair was the new style trick I’d learned, but not anymore.

So for part of BEDA, I think I’m going to try out different hairstyles and see if I can report back on them here. On the blog. And if anyone has any tips about how to take photos of the back of your head, please let me know!

Also, if you have a braided hairstyle you love, leave me a link because I’d love to put in the queue! So up tomorrow, this style (though my hair is probably not quite long enough to look this great):

(BEDA: April 9, 2013)

I take ballet classes on Monday & Wednesday evenings.

Today, all I wanted to do was spend the entire class stretching at the barre.

I rolled my ankle in last night’s soccer game, which means my always-injured Achilles was tight and sore.

(And yes, in rolling my ankle, my ankle was fine and my chronic injury was not.)

Unfortunately, we did not get to stretch at the barre all class.

So, I came home and managed to use husband-to-be’s recliner as a barre.

(It’s an appropriate height and doesn’t actually recline unless you pull the lever.)

But really, I think I could stretch all day.

Thankfully, tomorrow I have yoga.

(BEDA: April 8, 2013)

(BEDA: April 7, 2013)

1. Do the ridiculous amount of dishes I had in my sink for two weeks.
2. Rewatch random Rose episodes of Doctor Who.
3. Do some laundry because future mother-in-law gave me a roll of quarters AND detergent. (Best Easter gift ever.)
4. More Doctor Who and my favorite episode of Torchwood. (Countrycide, btw.)
5. Agricola!

Until tomorrow.

After that, the day became much better than anticipated because I spent the whole Friday with two of my really good friends — L & CW. Today the both sent in near-final drafts of their M.A. papers for their M.A. defenses and we wanted to celebrate. So we went to get burgers and fries for a late lunch and then played a few hours of shuffleboard. After that we said, “Hey, it’s Friday, let’s not go home early and work, no. Let’s go eat Mexican food and catch a movie!” So we did. 

We saw OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, which exceeded my expectations of an action film (which have seriously sucked recently). It’s essentially a rip-off of DIE HARD but that’s a good model to follow, imo. And sure, the dialogue is real terrible and the Greek mythology metaphor is way over done, but the film got my adrenaline going and there were some really creative killing sequences. 

So, you get this late post for BEDA because I was enjoying my final day for any kind of spontaneous relaxation until the semester ends and I’ve graduated. Sometimes sanity demands spontaneity. 

(BEDA: April 5, 2013)

P.S. Every website today sent me this email: ONLY 6 MONTHS UNTIL YOUR (MY) WEDDING DATE! Ooh, so much more to do in 6 months. Wowza. But now, it’s like the real countdown begins. Under six months and coming fast.