Talk about girl power. This song took a little while to grow on me but now I listen to it and feel a little bit of that Spice Girl era female empowerment.

Lost in the Right Direction

After graduating from college I have found myself feeling lost in universe. After what I like to consider a four year era of living the collegiate dream, my reign as a sorority girl, student, roommate, and resident hot mess has come to an abrupt end. The transition into the real world and this new way of life is scary and not as gradual as one could hope. You move home, wake up the next morning, and realize that this is what everyday for a while would like. No money and swimming in student loan payments life starts coming at the recent graduate a hundred miles per hour with no hope of a slow down. In the past few weeks I have reflected on my time not fully immersed in adulthood, my decisions were temporary and did not have the safe effect on my life as they do now. Looking for that first job, the real world relationship, and balancing the ever complicated new roommate (parents) relationship is a lot hard than anyone ever warned me it would be.
As I continue down this road we call life (singing "Boy Meets World" theme song in my head) I have decided to allow passion, excitement, and my gut lead me. I think that if I pursue my passion then everything should fall into place. However, a small problem I have encountered while developing my new manifesto about how to live passionately, I have come to the conclusion that I am not sure what exactly it is in the world that I am passionate about. I have created a passion list, it is a list of all the things that I really believe in or have fallen madly in love with. By writing them down I hope to never miss an opportunity to follow something that I am invested in.
This passion/excitement quest has lead me to a place where I am forced to take a leap out of comfort zone. I have to leave the safety of the family company and not feeling the pressure to give my all and share my passion everyday. As I follow this passion of mine that I have had since my glory days of high school I find myself facing new challenges. I am going to be an event planning intern. This is never something that I expected to be getting out of college however my love of the job has lead me to this amazing opportunity to learn from the best. Taking the step and leaving this job where people know me, what I am capable of, and the type of person I am to move into an unknown environment is scary but I am ready to take this step and start the wild ride that will become my life.
In terms of all the "other" stuff aka the rest of my life outside the potential career, I am beginning to learn that it is all about what feels right. I am learning that if a friendship doesn't seem right then it probably isn't and it might be time to move on. I am learning what it is I deserve from a romantic relationship and how to love myself enough to let go of the ones that are not making me feel passion or excitement. I am learning to navigate an adult relationship with my family and how to balance being my own person, that I got to be for the past four years, with the person that my parents want and expect me to be. I am trying to trust my gut and do what makes me feel good. Happiness isn't something that you just get to feel, it something you have to work at tirelessly. You have to fight to be happy and never let up on doing the things that are going to make you the best version of yourself. Because that my darlings, is the person that people out here in the real world want to meet.

Man Child

Man-Child: An adult-looking man with the mental capacity of a child when it comes to certain subjects. *

In almost every woman's life there will come a time when she will find herself interacting with a man-child. Whether it is in the work place, in a social setting, or the person she finds herself dating. Man-children are immensely frustrating because it is not always apparent that beneath this tough rugged manly appearance is the maturity level of a 14 year-old boy. So women can sometimes be tricked and not realize until a decent ways into the relationship that this man is not the adult that he appears to be. Dealing with a man-child is hard because children know that they are children however this man really believes that he is a fully functional adult male whose mental age matches his physical appearance. A man-child is not always ready for a mature relationship so it can feel like something that you already went through, maybe back in the good old high school days. He acts one way around his friends, always thinks he knows best, and is not always the most reliable of people.
When working with a man-child a woman finds herself having the balance being mature and over stepping into condescending bitchood. It is hard for women in the working world to be assertive and tell a man when he is acting like an adolescent and making things more difficult. A layer of complexity is added when this man is your superior. Immaturity in the work place makes working a little more difficult because there is a threat of distraction or of hostile inter-office contact. 
When dating a man-child, things become even more difficult. You immediately assume either the motherly role or the bitchy girlfriend role. You are forced to constantly correct the things that your boyfriend is doing that appear rude or deviate from traditional social norms. Little comments that he would make while with his drunken friends are not appropriate for alone time with your significant other. For example- this weekend a girlfriend told me that her SO was rude to a woman on a bus, while he thought he was being funny the woman was offended. While in front of his friends a cheeky comment like that could be seen as funny or flirtatious but with a girlfriend the comment comes off as condescending. When my friend got annoyed by it her man had to ask what do I say to make it better? She responded, "I'm sorry and I won't do something like that again", he repeated the statement. This was a prime example of needing to mother in a relationship. A 22-year-old man should know that if he offends his girlfriend all he needs to say is I am sorry that I did something that would upset you, it was not my intention. However the man-child does not know how to do this, he needs to be told. 
This process is hard because as an adult you do not want to be parenting your boyfriend by saying that wasn't ok and this is what needs to be done to make it better. You also don't want to come off as a high maintenance girlfriend by being constantly irritated by behavior that seems immature to you. He can also be inconsistent with phone calls or text messages which in turn can make a woman feel like he just simply does not care. 
It can be complicated and difficult because in some ways this man is incredible and he values some great things but in other ways it feels more like work than a partnership. The issues that arise in this situation are difficult to navigate and should be handled with care. 








*My own made up definition for the purpose of writing this