The future approaches ruthlessly fast, and time waits for nobody.

My apologies; it has been a HOT second since I last posted. In my defense, its been a hell of a few weeks and I've had a lot on my plate, with little time to decompress anything/everything that has happened or any of my thoughts. I'll break all the important things down for you all:

1) GRADUATION

The day I had loooooong been waiting for. Yep, it actually happened. I became a college graduate on May 17th. As I entered the ARC in my cap and gown and heard Pomp and Circumstance being played by the band, it was hard to be a little emotional and overwhelmed by it all. I was...done. With college. With school. It signified the end of being a student after the past 17 or so years. Frankly, being a student is something second nature to me. Homework, BlackBoard, assigned reading and PowerPoint presentations have consumed a rather large portion of my life over the past number of years. Its scary to not be able to rely on the familiar title of being a "student" anymore or probably ever again.

But that all said, I am so ecstatic to be on to my next life adventure!!!!*

Probs the one time in my life that I was clearly excited to be clad in head to toe brown

Straight cheesin

With my favorite Valpo Alumni, my mama. ♥

❤️

I would just like to point out that I was "First BA"dass (lawlz) to graduate. Its okay though, I didn't trip or make a fool out of myself like I was expecting.

Shaking the main Valpo man's hand

As a person who typically can be found supergluing her fingers together or somehow spontaneously bleeding while doing crafts, I'm pretty proud of this creation.

*BUT OF COURSE, a part of being on this adventure as a college graduate means getting a reputable real life job with things like a salary and benefits....needless to say thats something I'm in the process of working on...

2) My Stepdad's Retirement Celebration

Ironically, as I make the transition to one stage of life from a vocational perspective, my stepdad Bill is making a transition to another stage. This is his last year teaching at Grace Lutheran, my elementary school alma mater and home church. Its bizarre to think about the fact he's been a teacher there for 14 years, with almost 12 of them being my stepdad.

Last Sunday, a retirement luncheon in honor of Bill and two of my other past grade school teachers was held.

(Fact: me and my stepbrother Mike share the same kindergarten teacher who was also honored at the retirement luncheon. The cutie on the bottom left poppin in is my niece/Mike's daughter, Maddie)


One of a kind stained glass piece made for Bill

 

Overall, it was a quick but great weekend spent with my pretty great relatives.

(And Chachi, naturally)

3) Picturing how incredibly different my life is going to be like in the (frighteningly) near future

The last night in this Forest Park townhouse where I lived more than half my life is July 31st, 2014, and my parents and Chachi officially peace out of the USA and leave for Slovakia on August 20th, 2014, which oddly enough marks exactly a year since I left for Germany to study abroad. 

And just like that, two people and one little dog that have been "home" to me for quite some time now will be 4,743 miles and one very large and deep pond away from me.

It hasn't quite sunk in that the times I can call my mom as soon as I wake up around 9-10AM and talk with her about our daily plans or text her photos of the cat sitting in a ridiculous pose on the couch or drive the creative back way to Oakbrook mall in order to avoid the expressway, or listen to SportsCenter echoing throughout the house after my Bill gets home from school, or times to take Chachi on long walks around the neighborhood and watch him get enraptured over bunnies and squirrels are numbered. 

These small, seemingly insignificant and ordinary events that I have become familiarized with throughout my life are drawing to a close, and I can't help but feel uneasy with it ending so soon. The home I built here in this space, surrounded currently by the walls that watched me grow up; walls that currently enclose me as I type these words out. Walls that won't belong to me come August like they have since Bill and my mom married in August 2002. Thinker/teacher/philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti is quoted saying, "One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end." Krishnamurti makes a good point, as I know the life I have here and now in this house in this neighborhood like the back of my hand and its comfortable for me. Unsurprisingly, its a very strange feeling to be forced to let go of something that was literally your life for the most poignant years of life thus far.

That said, I'm a firm believer in the idea that life isn't meant to be lived in just one place, and a part of becoming who you are and knowing yourself are can only be realized by leaving pieces of your past behind. Frankly, how can you possibly expect to change and develop as a human being if you continue to clutch unto parts of you that are just empty voids of the person you once were? It could be a hobby or a habit or a tick or an ex or a mistake or anything. What is the point of holding on to those parts of your being that no longer serve you or grow you or make you into the best possible "you" that you can be?

After returning from living in Europe for 4 months first semester of senior year, I began to finally truly understand the saying that you'll never feel completely at home again after traveling and experiencing new places and creating a "home" using what you've got to work with. While the whirlwind of all these significant life events that include both myself and my immediate family that have/are occurring so rapidly and all at once leaves me in a bit of a dizzy spell, I know once things finally fall into place all this madness and frustration and insanity and uncertainty that is consuming me as I work to create and establish a place for myself in the adult world will all be worth it in the end. 

Just like how I left a piece of myself in Reutlingen, Germany and a piece of myself in Valparaiso, IN, a piece of who I am will be left here in this house with the seemingly trivial and inconsequential fragments of what growing up here has been like over the past decade for myself.

This long and lengthy chapter of my life here is drawing at a close and things that are seemingly so vital and necessary will soon be just pieces of the past. But that's okay; I need to make room for the vital and necessary pieces of this new life that is beginning, I'm sure that the chapter following this one will be even better.

Until next time loves,

Rachel ☆

Before, After, and whatever you put between them.

Okay so I know I can't be the only person that totally loves before and after photos, right? I'm admittedly a huge sucker for seeing how things change over time with, or without, effort. No matter what it is, I love looking at such comparisons in situations that include technically the same object or person. This includes but is not limited to makeover TV shows, the dramatically frustrated people in the black in white film on infomercials, HGTV in general, #TransformationTuesday pictures, and weight loss side-by-side comparisons that show what healthy diet/exercise adjustments can do. The "before" half is almost always not nearly as pretty, useful, smart, defined, or as healthy as its "after" counterpart, because naturally someone did something and put in the effort to make it better in some way for some reason.

I spent my Tuesday morning volunteering at Bridgeport Arts Center on the South side right by U.S. Cellular, a neighborhood I'm not familiar with in Chicago, but really enjoyed getting to see this awesome neighborhood in addition to volunteering for an event so unique and different. Every year, they host a "party" for a few different Chicago Public High Schools, where each student can paint and create their own little block of artwork and then get a free lunch. All day, I literally walked to and from different sinks dumping paint water and refilling the paint water. It was tedious, but mindless and easy, plus I got to look at all of the different artwork while in the midst of the students creating it.

I quickly got the vibe that all of these students were high school seniors, as many of them painted recognizable copies of different college logos in their future school's colors on their piece of canvas, and several of them I could tell were intending to use their projects as Mother's Day gifts or an anniversary gift or a best friend plaque. What really got me thinking was how these kids were only about 4 years younger than me, and I could literally feel how much of a different person I was 4 years ago at this time. I remember exactly who I was back at this time; bubbling over in excitement that college was finally here, so excited, so ready for it. I still recognize that sort of anticipation within myself, as I'm feeling it right now as I await college graduation in nine days.

Its true that you never really know how things are going to end up, no matter how many great plans you make, or how many goals you create. Four years ago, everything was different. My friends I chilled with all the time, my wardrobe, my body, my relationship status, my priorities, my thoughts...after all this time, I'm not the same person I was. In fact, I'm nothing like that person, and I know that I'll never be like that person ever again in my life.

It was difficult for me to have anything in common with the high schoolers I worked with. These are the people that take group pic selfies in the bathroom with their glossy iPhone 5s, rarely say please or thank you, Snapchat across the table from each other, and write things like "PROSSER HS FOOTBALL HELL YEAH" and "Alexa and Augusto, 4-22-14 *heart*"on anything they can get their hands on. I wish I could've just told them that things that probably mean everything to them right now won't matter in four years, let alone one year. I wanted to tell them to always be polite, especially to people older than them. I wanted to tell them how important face-to-face communication is and always will be, and that not everything in life depends on their amount of likes on an Instagram picture, or things you believe are going to last forever never do. I want to tell them about how I was so much like them four years ago, and that nothing ever happens like you expect it will. I wasn't expecting to be a 'sorority girl'. I wasn't expecting to have lost as much weight as I did. I wasn't expecting the characters that theatre gave me. I wasn't expecting that Reutlingen, Germany would be my home for four months. I wasn't expecting the truly horrible things that happened. I wasn't expecting the amount/degree of which I would love/break my heart. I wasn't expecting the friends I ended college with to have become so important to me over time. I wasn't expecting all the odd jobs and obligations and things I did. Above all, I wasn't expecting how after years of hurt, pain, loneliness, despair, fear and sadness that I'd find myself so unbelievably happy with the way my life has turned out at this time.

Senior banner signed by all students

Its funny; in the grand scheme of things, four years really isn't very long of a time at all. Think of childhood for example; at age 4 you are a child and at age 8 you are a child and at ages 11 and 15 and 18 you are still a child in almost all senses of the word as you have never been on your own before. Still young and naive and overall still so very wide-eyed and innocent regarding what you know about yourself and the world. However, interestingly enough, the things you experience between the ages of 18-22 are the most intriguing to evaluate, because the amount of experiences you get during those years typically tend to be the experiences that help you grow and discover yourself. At my school at least, I personally think you discover who you are in the comfy, safe Valpo bubble at some point during your time here, and in the bubble you nurture yourself/allow yourself to be nurtured until you realize that you've gotten too big for the bubble, and suddenly the feeling that was once comfort feels like suffocating and the safety the bubble provides begins to feel arbitrary, annoying and useless.

I can feel myself outside of the bubble now, and frankly I have felt out of place for awhile now. I have been supported, brought up, and educated in the Valpo way and I am so thankful for everything that I've learned, but now its time to go. Its time to leave the bubble behind for something new. Something better. Something unknown and unfamiliar. I know this because I compare and contrast the girl who came to Valpo in 2010 with this woman thats leaving Valpo in 2014, and I am no longer her. I am no longer insecure, scared, naive, hopeless and childish. I'm confident, smarter, more useful, more defined, and healthier. I have become an "after" to my young and eager and bushy-tailed "before" from so many years ago, and for that I am content with how Valpo transformed me.

And in four years from now you may ask? Well, lets hope I achieve so much so that I can refer to today's "after" as tomorrow's "before".

Love always,
Rachel

Pictures from volunteering at Bridgeport Art Center Sky Loft, Chicago, IL. 

"The beginning of the end? No sir. Its merely the end of the beginning."

WELP, upon making the hilariously long list of things that I have to accomplish within the next 13 (!!!!!!!!) days in order to graduate (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), its only fitting of myself that I find some way to procrastinate such obligations with something thats completely unnecessary, like starting a new blog to document the series of events in my life now that I have little clue as to where I'm going and what I'm doing and all the important aspects of being an adult.

I suppose I also felt a pull to ground myself into something that has the potential to assist in reaching my the current goals I have for myself. I figured something like a blog, a thing that chronicles details of the user's life to readers, couldn't hurt while I figure out the actual HECK I'm doing after the next 13 days. Upon a class session in Social Networking where we entirely focused on the blog culture and took an in depth look at what blogs can do, I figured this might just be a good idea for me. After blogging about my semester abroad in Fall 2013 (and then failing miserably once I got busy with the grandeur of being in Europe because, well, living in Europe pretty cool but whatever), I realized just how much I could gain from creating and using this page. I believe the action writing things down and making a tangible documentation of the words and thoughts in my head could help with this daunting transition I'm about to go through, and how publishing my thoughts on a public forum could be of assistance to both myself, and other friends, colleagues, and peers in the same position as me.

Or maybe all this page will be is a place where I rant and rave about how I have no idea whats going on, but lets just hope the end result will be the former, not the latter.

BUT ANYWAYS, today is a day of some lasts, which is beginning to make this whole graduation thing "real" to me. Today, after dedicating slots of my time on Sundays to two campus organizations that I hold near and dear to me for the past few years, is the last time. Its the last time I go to an Alpha Psi Omega (ΑΨΩ) meeting where I get to weekly see and be with people that hold the same love and appreciation I have for the art of theatre. These people are the only people in the world that have watched me struggle, fail, experiment, grow, and succeed in the art of transforming my personality into someone other than myself over the past 4 years. While I am no longer able to graduate with a theatre major due to some technicalities, these are the people have seen me at my most raw state of being, and vice versa. We've watched each other, studied each other, evaluated each other, and most importantly, worked and collaborated with each other on something we all mutually love and cherish in all of our own unique and differentiating ways.

Today also marks the last time I attend chapter and participate in ritual for my sorority, Chi Omega (ΧΩ). Similar to ΑΨΩ, this organization is incredibly important to me and close to my heart. Never in my life did I ever believe that I wanted to be a part of a sorority, as all I knew about it was the media potrayals until coming to Valpo and meeting the members of the Alpha Lambda chapter of Chi Omega. This group of 60+ women are some of the most influential and inspiring people I've had the opportunity of meeting. While its obviously literally impossible to be best friends with 60+ women, the fact that we all have this organization in common and how each and every one of us strives to live out our values, purposes, symphony and secret meaning of our letters bonds us all together in a way nothing else in the world can. I'm so blessed to be a part of something with not only my sisters from my chapter, but also sisters from all over the world that keep Chi Omega ever at heart. The fact that this is the last day of being an active member is an incredibly strange concept to think about, as the meaning of Chi Omega transcends college. I realize this might be difficult to explain to someone thats not a Chi Omega, let alone someone who doesn't know much about greek life organizations to begin with, but even as an alumna and no matter which direction my life will go, the values of this organization will forever be instilled within me and intertwined with me, and for that I am a better person than I ever was before.

Not only has almost every single post grad tell me that "real life sucks" and that I'll "miss Valpo all the time", but the other day I overheard someone jokingly-but-also-not-so-jokingly refer to graduation as "the beginning of the end" because "life is just over being fun after college" and I can't help but think about that declaration a lot. I felt an immediate desire to be "that guy" and butt into his conversation and say, "The beginning of the end? No sir. Its merely the end of the beginning.", but my good social graces refrained me from being an eavesdropping weirdo.

While I am certain that I will miss the constant learning atmosphere that college simulates and of course all of the amazing people and friends I've met here, I am ready for something new. Sure, the fact that I will be breaking my yearly life pattern is sort-of beyond horrifying, as the past 20 or so years I've had 6473824298 different classes, done roughly 78495302819307 hours of homework, had friends that came and went and friends that stayed, been involved in a huge variety of clubs, organizations, and extra-curriculars, getting specific holiday "breaks", and always knowing in the back of my mind that come May/June, I'll have a 3 month celebratory break that I've finished another level of education, all with the same knowledge that I'll be returning to complete the following level come August.

But now, the cycle ends, and while that is still an incredibly strange and foreign concept to consider, it is time for me to move on with my life. Frankly, I think its a huge turn off to hear people say how crappy post grad life is, and how I will somehow just "miss Valpo all the time". I think thoughts like that just completely provoke bad feelings about being apart of something new and unfamiliar. No offense, but frankly I think if you find yourself just constantly complaining about how the real world sucks and how post grad life sucks and how your life is "over" because you're no longer in college, its not the real world sucking, sorry, but its probably you just being lazy by complaining.

I mean, sure, I'm scared $#*!less of the unfamiliarity of it all, but the odds are I still have 3/4s of life to live, and I'm going to consciously work to make sure that I learn, grow, and discover more about myself, others, world, hell, even the whole UNIVERSE every day no matter what my life circumstances may be. As I have publicly written about before, I am a lover and proprietor of list making, so naturally I have a bucket list of personal goals for myself for the rest of my life. It is beyond important to me to continuously be able to experience and soak up anything and all I can, and I'm going to actively work so that this next chapter of my life won't detract me from all that I want to see, learn, think and do.

BUT, I digress. I have 13 days left of college, and dangit I'm going to be making the most of the time I have remaining (mostly studying and finals and so I can finish college strong but still). I'm going to take the these last few days of my undergrad years one day at a time, grasping on to all the time I have left here.

Therefore, today I say goodbye to the two of the best greatest aspects of my college experience. Thank you for everything, ΑΨΩ and ΧΩ. You will both be sorely missed from my life.

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

― William Shakespeare, As You Like It 

Love always & until next time,

Rachel