It's been a month since my last entry, whaaat? Seriously, this fall has gone by faster than lightning and it almost scares me how time slips away so easily. Although starting a new job always has that kind of effect I suppose...hopefully it's not that I'm getting old, cough.

As I was going to work the other day, sun shining, bright blue sky extending forever (yay, California! I'm still crazy for you!), I was thinking how nice it actually is to be older. I feel almost like a completely different person altogether. It shouldn't be a surprise that time and experience allow us to better understand ourselves and realize what we need, what we want, what makes us happy, ...all of those important life-changing type things...but somehow it continues to shock me how things that seem totally obvious/easy/clear to me now were a source of so much pain/confusion/yearning/chaos in the past. Obviously everything isn't all perfect and dandy now, but I do feel that I've grown a lot. It seems that when we're younger, we just want to please other people and fit in with whatever's around us and voluntarily jump through hoops (at least I sometimes did)...now I'm a lot more concerned about living how I want to live and loving what I love and not caring so much about others' expectations. It feels amazing to let all of that go and just live for yourself. Not in a selfish, tunnel-visioned way...but in the follow-your-heart and be true to yourself kind of way. We talked about this in some kind of career-guidance class I had to take in high school. I still remember how much I hated that class because it was so cheesy and condescending...but eventually those concepts do become relevant. Not when you're forced to write about them in a high school essay, though. We also had to plan our futures, which included choosing a career and making a family plan. Yes, a family plan. I made a presentation about how I would be a psychiatrist with a husband and a dog. Probably in a house. Gah, the horror.