Taken Opportunity

May’s focus involved realizing who I know. It's not what you know, it's who you know, right? 

Current opportunities have proved this to be true in my life. I am interning for a great non-profit right now and start a summer internship with a technology company next month. Did I mention both internships are paid?! Life is good, but I don't feel like writing about my connections for the next month. Therefore, I'm slightly changing the focus. This month will now be about capitalizing on opportunity.

5 years ago I was a semester deep into community college. I didn't have a job, besides random babysitting gigs, and I wasn't necessarily looking for one. I was completely content with walking to school everyday (I lived close and didn't have a car), coming home to the cozy apartment I shared with my mom (rent free lifestyle), and alternating between napping and catching up on hours of Friends and SNL stored on my DVR. 

Along with living a complete lax life, one of my best, most epic, friendships had just begun. We met in dance class on both of our first days of college. I can still remember the early, carefree days of our friendship, getting to know each other through adventures to the City and strolls around school. The time we took the train South instead of North, but it didn’t matter because we had no where to be anyway. Our endless days of sleepovers and endless hours of conversations. Our constant contact because life was still simple. I not only became close to her but her aunt, uncle, and new baby cousin, whom she lived with, became a significant part of my life as well. 

Her aunt was 9 months pregnant the first time I met her. The next time I saw her, she had an adorable baby boy in her arms. I remember sitting in their living room revealing in the preciousness of new life, when she asked me if I was looking for a part-time babysitting job. There I sat, not exactly partaking in the job hunt, but I said yes to the opportunity anyway. 

I started babysitting for their family within the next two months and stayed for two years. A year into babysitting for them, they had another baby. A girl this time. I was honored to stay with both children. Around this time I also started working for another family. I would pick up an older girl from school and drive her to various activities. My babysitting “career” was expanding and it has continually grown. I work for an average of 3 families a week now, ranging from 2 to 3 babysitting jobs a day. 

It has been a good 5 years because I capitalized on an opportunity. I have been able to travel to San Diego over a dozen times, New York, Boston, Washington DC, London, and Hawaii with the money and flexibility babysitting gives me. I buy coffee from Starbucks everyday of my life. I own my own car. I am able to go on adventures and buy magical things. Best of all I’m graduating with a BA in Communication at the end of the month.

It’s a pretty little life.

Stay tuned.. -a. 

They know me

Its sad to think of my lost contact with friends over the years. Friends who knew me so deeply that such a connection can only exist through spending significant amounts of time together. Friends whose lives were intertwined with mine, our daily schedules affecting each others routines. Friends who recognized small things I didn't even realize about myself. Like the (annoying) sipping sound I make EVERY TIME after I sip a Jamba Juice. Or that I always leave shreds of cotton balls in my Vaseline from taking off my makeup. And that I scoot down to the bottom of the bed mid sleep, waking up near my friends feet instead of her head.

Some of these lost connected friends know beauty secrets and products you couldn't pay me to dish about. But they know. They know because they used to get ready with me every weekend.

They know I talk in my sleep and can have a stubborn streak. They know all the boys who've made me cry and the inside jokes that make me laugh. They've heard my stories and know my habits. Parts of my life have been sewed with theirs. We share our own collection of tales from the past but rarely see each other in the present.

One friend who moved away knows about "The Monsters" because she was there with me on my 19th birthday when I had a horrible case and we dubbed it that. That horrible feeling when your nervous and anxious and shaky and you can't really figure out why. It almost feels like butterflies.. But then you realize they must be butterflies on crack or some shit because you're tweaking out.. These are "The Monsters." ...Maybe you still don't even understand what they are but whenever I get a dreaded case of The Monsters, I text this friend, thousands of miles away, and she knows. She still knows.

So even though I flake all the time and it's still a work in progress for me to know what I mean and to mean what I say... even though I've lost touch with these people who used to be my people because of location, or simply because of time, they still know.

Stay tuned.. -a.