Thank you, Marina Keegan

If you have not yet picked up a copy of Marina Keegan's "The Opposite of Loneliness", stop reading this and go do it NOW! 

If you are not sure who Marina Keegan is, google her story. It is sad, inspirational, and sad some more.

But one thing that I just cannot shake-- just how much Marina and I are the same. Not in looks, personality, writing techniques (she went to YALE and had a job at the NY Times. She was freaking FAB!), but in the way that we had a lot of the same thoughts and that she actually wrote them down. She has made me feel like I am not CRAZY! 

Do you sometimes feel like you are the only who thinks this, that, or another thing? Well let me tell you, you are probably NOT (there are other crazy people out there in the world just like YOU!)

Marina's "The Opposite of Loneliness" essay and her Nonfiction writing of "Stability in Motion" hit so close to come to me it is indescribable (but I am going to try anyways).

Marina did not know she was going to get killed five days after her college graduation, so she wrote "The Opposite of Loneliness" like she was going to live forever. She writes about how scared she was not to have the security of her friends like she had at Yale. "losing this web" and "this elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness." This is the feeling, she says, that she was feeling at that moment. Just days before her final breath, her last blink and sigh. "I plan on having fun when I'm old.", Marina writes, and speaks of "what if", "wish I'd" and "if I'd" topics. Things that we ALL have pondered many times. 

Marina goes on to write, "We're so young. We're so young. We're twenty-two years old. We have so much time." But the truth is, Marina did not. 

She ends her essay with "We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I'd say that's how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don't have to lose that."

I mentioned earlier another piece of Marina's writing called "Stability in Motion". This is piece she wrote about her first car. Yes, her first car. She had this "relationship", emotional, with her first car. Call her crazy, but I am and was the same way. She describes this car in ways that you would think she had some weird obsession and maybe needed to go see a shrink about it, but it just shows that, to her, it was just about four wheels that got her from home to her best friend's house- it was so much more than that. 

This is how Marina lived her life and that is how I live mine. She had so much more emotion in her life than I would say the average person does. She felt everything and her imagination ran wild. She lived her life. She lived 22 years and she LIVED them. 

Her nonfiction stories are all different, weird, sad, awkward, and inspiring that you would not believe they all came from one mind. But they did and I want to thank Marina so much for this. 

Thank you, Marina, for having an ambitious, wild, fantastic, weird, truthful imagination. 

Now, I know that my blog isn't a "book review" blog, but if I inspired you to read her book, then great. If I bored you, then well, tough luck because you are really missing out.

We are SO YOUNG.

3 F's: Fiance's, Financial's, & Futures!

It has been a long time since I wrote last and I would like to state that more has happened to me since June 2013 since I was brought in to this world. 

1. I bought a house.
2. I met a man. (thanks, Mark Esber.)
3. I fell in love with this man.
4. I moved in with this man.
5. I got engaged to this man. (no, mom, I am not going to die alone!)
6. We combined finances.
7. I am going back to school.

(this is NOT in the order of importance- not to me OR my mother.)


PHEW!

All of this happened to me within 2 months of making the hard decision of moving back to North Canton, OH and leaving my beloved city of Chicago, IL. All of my dreams are coming true when I LEAST EXPECTED and in a city I thought I would never truly find happiness.

I was 23 when I bought the house; TWENTY-THREE PEOPLE! You can too! The feeling is unlike anything else. Sitting in your realtor's office (also, in this case, your realtor is your matchmaker and is the one who introduces you to your future fiance) bored out of your mind because for 2 hours he is talking about mortgages, finances, and land rights, all the while you are thinking about what color you are going to paint your bedroom and what kind of wine you are going to buy to celebrate this huge accomplishment.

I am going to be cliche for a moment, so just bare with me...

Here it goes..

 WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW! 

I am living, breathing, dancing, singing, sleeping proof of this. I met Nathan in July and by September we were basically living together and in November we went ring shopping and in December we were engaged.

I. Just. Knew.

(cue the doves)

We combined our finances (ballsy, we know, we get it) in March and are currently taking a financial class together and it has been the best decision we have made so far. RECOMMENDED PEOPLE!

Oh, and I am going back to school to be an english teacher- score!




Why, Tracy, did you find it necessary to catch us up on your dull life? All 3 of us that read your blog want to read about "important", "fun", and "anything else besides your life" topics. You are right. My fault, but whatever- I am happy, so much has changed, and I felt the need to update the public on all 7 major accomplishments that have occurred to me since the last time I wrote it.



This is the paragraph where I promise to write "daily" or "more"and I want to. I love this blog, I love writing, so I am going to start with writing myself a Post-It that says "BLOG!"



:)