HUGE news

So once again my life manages to take a complete turn in the few weeks since I have written a blog. I have something really big happening right now and I have somehow managed to find some really great friends in the deal as well.

It's no secret that I have been wanting to move out for a long time. I love my family and my parents are great for allowing me to live at home rent free, but I have been hoping to get out on my own for over a year now. Until recently, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that this was not going to happen. So when an old friend and coworker came back to Zupas a few months back and we talked and decided that we could maybe end up living together I still thought it was a long shot.

I never would have believed it if you had told me that I would be signing a lease on an apartment by the time March came around.

So yes. I am moving in with two of the coolest girls on the planet. It helps that I have known Hailee for over and decade and Amanda and I are becoming very fast friends. We are all excited to be out on our own. I'm still having a hard time believing that it's true.

We aren't moving in for over a month, though. So for now I just have to go through all of my old things and determine whether or not they are worth keeping. Expect pictures once we actually begin moving things and for sure by the time we get the apartment put together.

Seriously, though. This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.

The One With Many Names

I have been writing this blog over a period of about six years. I have changed the layout many times. However, I have used two titles for it. The first, Purple Orange Chocolate, was a silly inside joke between two fifteen year old girls who used to spend way to much time hanging out at their school (that story involves pocket dictionaries and the word 'chowder-head' and I really don't think anyone other than mL and I would have ever found it interesting.) The Aspiring Writer was my second title and was supposed to create a transition between the junior high girl who started this blog as a class project and the high schooler who continued it because she wanted an archive of her life.

It seems fitting that I would change the title of this blog once more now, as I'm beginning to figure out my place in this crazy adult world. I'm stumbling around trying to figure out what I want to be doing and who I want to be doing it. Unlike in high school, the various roles that I play in my life no longer seem to define me. Instead, I feel that I am finally comfortable with being seen as I really am in every situation I am put in to. I no longer have the need or the desire to put on an act for my family, friends, or coworkers. If the people in my life do not like the way that I am they will have to learn to tolerate it because I will not allow others to mold my personality anymore.

It's strange that this new confidence should surface within me while I'm going through the biggest transition of my life up to this point. With my move into my increasingly independent adult life, I have been transitioning into being a new person. Just like this blog, I have given myself a new title as well (or decided to go by a different one, at least.) While I continue to be referred to by my old name at home and with old friends. Catherine, shortened to Cat by my friends and coworkers, is the name that most people will know me by as I meet new people for the rest of my life. My family and oldest friends, though, will always know me as Madison or Madi or Mac or any other variation they have come up with over the years.

What the last year or so has taught me, however, is that my title, my name, does not define me in any way. Whether I am being called by Cat or Madi or Shasta (more inside jokes that have probably been long forgotten by everyone else,) I am still the same person.

So the new title of this blog is The One with Many Names.

And after all,

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

This week has been a long and introspective week. Mom, Bill, Abby and Linzie were in Hawaii and Carley, Emily and I were left with the house to ourselves. This trip had been in the works for nearly a year. The whole time, Carley and I had planned on having a party and enjoying the chance to have people over when we wanted without having to worry about other people's schedules. I don't think that we expected to be nearly as busy as we both currently are in our own lives.

All of that basically means that I spent a lot of time alone this week. I had a lot of time to think. That thinking led to some thoughts that put in a not so great mood. I was left feeling incredibly lonely and purposeless. It was not really a great week for me.

But as with everything else in my life, I talked to my mom about it and she gave me some really great thoughts to add to my pile. I may feel purposeless, but I'm not. Everything I'm doing right now is preparing me for my future. I'm gaining experiences that will help me in my career. One day, when I have a client who is struggling to find some purpose or meaning in their lives, I will know how they feel because I will be able to draw on my own experiences.

And whose to say I don't have a purpose? Sometimes I forget that Zupas is not Boondocks. At Zupas I am respected and my ideas are actually considered when making decisions. I have the ability to make a difference there. I can help the people that I am in charge of because they actually listen to me. It's actually surprising how many of them come to me for advice. I'm nobody. I have had three jobs in my life. All of which have been in the food industry. I'm only 20. There are people I work with who have far more experience than me. Yet, they come to me. And that must mean that I'm doing something right. That right there is a purpose. Plus, it's even more experience that will help me in the future.

So I managed to upset myself this week with unproductive thoughts... And then I pulled myself out of it with a little help from awesome people who put up with me when I'm being ridiculous. :)

Transitions

As 2012 came to an end and we moved into the new year, I found myself thinking a lot about what I would start off my year blogging about. I've written a couple of drafts that discuss all of the things that the year taught me and all of the ways that my life changed. Those things are important and they're true... But I feel like I have already said so much about all of that. Those are the things that I write about all of the time. I am a person who is perpetually looking behind her and into the past. Why is that?

All I know is that sometime during the last year I have found myself struggling to move into a future that is really, really undefined. I have given myself the idea that what I am doing is progressing, but I'm not really. I have hopes, dreams, and ideas that create the illusion of progress... But am I really doing anything differently?

I go to school. I go to work. I sometimes clean my bedroom. Every once in a while a friend will reveal themselves from the woodwork and I'll spend a couple of days socializing. There is absolutely no difference between my actions now and my actions in high school. My mind is different. My outlook on life is different. My actions are the same. How is that progress?

I feel like I'm so stuck in this pattern. I think I may have reached a limit as far as progress is concerned with my life as it is now. I need to put myself in a new situation somehow. I need to remove myself from the old patterns that I have found myself in and find some room to grow. I just... Have no idea where to start.

So my New Year's Resolution this year is less about changing myself and more about putting myself out into the world more. I want to move out of my house and reach the independence that doing so will allow me. I want to pay off my car so that I can put even more money away for my future. I want to meet new people and forge new relationships. I feel like 2012 was all about changing the way I saw myself and the rest of the world. 2013 is going to be the next phase. I'll get there eventually, right?