Ten years ago - almost to the day - I was graduating from Georgetown with a bachelors in government, engaged to a lawyer whom I had met while he was at Georgetown Law, wearing pearls and popping the collar of my pastel Lacoste polos and moving to a bland, anonymous apartment complex in the white-washed suburban consumerist hell of Newport Beach, California while trying to launch my career as a writer. I. was. f--king. MISERABLE. Lost. Alone. Completely terrified. I lasted exactly four months there before having a total breakdown, breaking off my engagement and running away with nothing but a few boxes of preppy clothing - no job, very little money, no idea what the hell I was going to do - across the country to New York City. Once there, I moved into a mice-infested second floor one bedroom (converted into three, of course - and you couldnt stand up in the top two bedrooms) on the dirty, loud intersection of 23rd and Park Avenue with two blonde 22-year-old roommates I had met on Craigslist. (Still good friends with Krystal today!) I had been to New York for the first time only a few months prior. To say I was naive is an understatement of enormous proportion. I was a child. An enthusiastic, incredibly ambitious, unbelievably in-over-her-head, child. I was also completely on my own (no financial help from my parents since the day I graduated from college.) To this day, making that move was one of the bravest things I have ever done in my life, before or since. When I look back at photos of the Julia of a decade ago, I cant believe how much Ive changed. How much happier I am now. How much more free. How much more at home in the world, in my body, in my life, in my spirituality and in how I show up. Thats not to say that things are perfect - I wouldnt have predicted Id still be single a decade after being engaged for the first time (oops?), I wouldnt have predicted Id be traipsing around in cowboy boots and a flower crown to hippie festivals while living in a third floor walk up in San Francisco. But life surprises you. Always. And despite the ups and downs, the heartbreaks and the failures ... this one has been pretty good to me so far. Heres to the next decade ... may it surprise and delight me just as much as this one. Maybe with a few less tears, though. ;-)
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 23:11:28 +0000
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