Keep Moving Forward!

Get Your Exuberance Off My Uterus

I love kids. No joke. I think they're awesome, and I love playing with Barbies and watching Fairly Odd Parents. BBBUUUTTT... I would have to get a complete personality transplant to ever want to have one.

But that's the plan, isn't it? You're born, you get an education, you get married, and you have children. It's growing up!

If that's growing up, I'll pass.

The idea of being pregnant has always been... I'll say it... disgusting to me. Not to mention the fact that... oh I don't know... it's the most painful human experience by like a million! If you aren't 190% ready to reap the reward of that torture, my opinion is the only rational choice is to opt out.

I have become increasingly outspoken about my stance in the past few years since everyone else is becoming increasingly outspoken about how worthless, weird, and evil it makes me. I have been told on two separate occasions that my life has no meaning if I don't have children. THAT MY LIFE HAS NO MEANING. What. The. What?

And don't tell me that having kids has made you a better person. I wish, for the sake of the children, that this was true, but it's not. It's complete bullshit, and here's a Ph.D. Psychologist to tell you why.

Having kids is just a choice. It's a lifestyle decision. That's it. It's not a mandatory step into adulthood. Choosing to forego children will not make your life, or relationship, incomplete.

I love the way my close friend puts it:

“People I went to high school with post things on Facebook about how they 'just didn't know how great life could be until they were a Mommy.' I try not to, but I immediately recoil a little and think, 'were you really that boring and aimless when you were just a woman? That you needed something else to validate your existence?'”

Plus, telling me I'll grow out of it is condescending. I'm not two, and this ain't thumb sucking.

Are you being a jerk to your friends and family members who don't want kids? Well, STOP! Check out this funny, but necessary article on 23 Things You Should Never Say To A Child-free Woman.

Twenty-Somebody Blog Grand Opening!

It always struck me as odd that grand openings for businesses seemed to be two months late. Now I get it. But anyway...

We're officially a blog and not something I did once and lost interest in! Here's to longer attention spans!



I started this blog because I think millennials get a bad rap. As a twenty-somebody, I am trying to carve out my path, but it often feels like I'm just fighting to survive.

This blog looks at multiple sides of many issues affecting young people: college, work, friendship, family, marriage, and government. I want it to serve as a conversation catalyst. Twenty-Somebody should be an outlet for you to express your concerns and opinions.

To celebrate our grand opening, check out, comment, and share some of my (and your) favorite posts!

The Perks of Being an Entitled Brat

Kids Today and Their Cell Phones

The Case Against College

The Case For College

Also, please subscribe! If you do, I'll dance for you!

Join the Twenty-Somebody Book Club!

For those of us who have time to read for fun, I started a Goodreads Twenty-Somebody book club! I'm currently reading this beauty:

Want to join me?

Raise Hell

This is how I feel today...

Improv Living- Parenthood Edition

Our parents teach us how to love, how to be in relationships, it's true.

 But our parents also teach us how to be human.

I'm sitting at Starbucks, watching a dad and his daughter. She is a collage of pink. Little pink helmet on her head, little pink basket on her bike. The bike's pink tassels are blowing in the wind as she eats a pink cake pop. The soles of her shoes are pink. He sips his coffee and they chat like grownups, but lovingly wipes her cheek when she has an icing smear. I don't know this man, but I feel like I can see his soul.

Watching them interact brought back when my dad and I used to bicycles through the backstreets of our town. It brings back feelings that don't often surface for me. There was a lot of tumult in my childhood and I attribute most of it to my dad. We fought like hyenas. He was not a pillar of stability. But he did the best he could, and despite this sentiment being a cliché, I truly believe it.

As I sat at my grandfather's funeral a few weeks ago, I thought about the things we pass from generation to generation. My grandfather made mistakes with my dad, and he made some of the same mistakes with me, surely. This could easily be considered an inheritance of blame and pain, but with deeper understanding, it doesn't have to be.

I think one of the most important parts of growing up is realizing your parents are human, are flawed. I thought I had come to terms with this long ago, but now I think I've uncovered a new layer of understanding. I often suffer from Peter Pan syndrome, bucking many aspects of adulthood. I don't want to have it all figured out; that seems incredibly boring. But we expect our parents to be superadults simply because they have us.

If I can see my dad as someone who is still figuring it out, I can truly appreciate how hard it is to be responsible for another person, for being liable for their flaws and mistakes. Parenthood puts the ways you live in front of an unsteady camera, to be projected from your children in many manifestations. That's a lot of responsibility. I say it's time for us to take the helm.

Twenty-somebodies, our parents taught us how to be human, but only we can determine where we direct our higher education. We must be responsible for the adults we become, and we must learn to forgive our parents.

28 Modern Proverbs For Twentysomethings (Buzzfeed)

28 Modern Proverbs For Twentysomethings

My Fave: 

Bowling Alone and Voting Alone

Social capital is suffering with the millennials. What does this mean for the future of civic engagement?

It's true. Twentysomebodies are majority liberal, especially when it comes to social issues, but we don't trust institutions. Parties drive much of what we see as wrong with politics today, and we don't attach ourselves to something we see as harmful. 

Millennials in Adulthood

This morning on Morning Joe, PEW Research Center announced a new study on millennials. Paul Taylor also pushes his book The Next America. Interesting, if very old-persony, look at twentysomebodies.





Take Away: We are putting off adulthood because the economy, government, and older generations aren't ready for us.

The Framily Plan

Some days, I am simply overwhelmed with love and gratitude.

It truly amazes me how lucky I am to have amazing friends. They are the coolest twentysomebodies out there, hands down.

There is Jacob, who just left his home-state, which means the world to him, to have a go in Washington. We have never lived in the same area (or side of the country), and I can't express how exciting it is to have him just minutes away. Jake and I met in New Orleans in 2007, and I have been in love with him ever since.

At the same event, I met the brother of my soul, Stephen, who is currently in Kenya working for a community development non-profit. He is one of the smartest, kindest, and most fearless people I know. We have gone months without speaking, years without seeing each other, but he is always there when I need him.

And then there is Jerrod, who I haven't seen for months despite the fact that we live in the same town, but when my husband snuck me into his office today, he made my day with a big hug. He has the most stupefying singing voice; if he's not famous by thirty, I'll eat my hat.

And Spencer, who checked on me about ten times during the last week, as we were laying my grandfather to rest. His sensitivity and thoughtfulness are unmatched.

On days like this, I realize how broad and strong my framily web is. I have people that love me all over the

country. There are Ken in Nevada, Shea and Gregg in Pittsburgh, Dave and Beau in West Virginia, Feliz in New York, and Skye and Meghan close to home. Not to mention the best friend that I married. It's so grand. My love has a massive reach! How can you ever feel alone in a world like this?

Of all the blessings I count, my friends never fail to make me feel like the luckiest girl on Earth.

I've been contemplating the characteristics that make individuals unique: the damage, the struggles, and the dispositions that come to define us. I've always had weird hang-ups about family, and often I directed that affection toward my friends. Maybe it's the control freak in me, but this has always been my tendency because I chose them. They are rock stars, they are the family I built around me. 

Many Buddhist teachers say that you must know suffering to know peace, but I think we can find awakening in our happiness, too. When we are grateful and happy, we can better appreciate the people that are ours. The people we choose shape us, define us, pick us up, and should benefit from our happiness. Give someone special a call today. Next time you are joyous, invite them to share in your joy.

The Lucky Generation

There are times in our lives that test us, that force us to reflect. My grandfather died a week ago, and we buried him last Thursday. I am not fully prepared to write about it, as I don't believe I have fully processed it. However, I am meditating a lot on the idea of family and the other ways in which we are collective. I think about yoga classes and how they are an act in trust. We wear tight (or sometimes very loose) clothing, stretch, shake, sweat, and (admit it) fart in a room full of strangers. Ultimately, we lie down with our eyes closed and meditate on our backs for any number of minutes. Some of us have even fallen asleep in these classes. I can't enter a yoga class without feeling profoundly lucky to live in America, in this time. I am safe the vast majority of the time. We are so privileged.

The way we gauge safety is often with murder rates. They are more reliable than more politically charged statistics like domestic assault or rape rates. According to the FBI, our current murder rate (as of 2012) is 4.7 out of 100,000 people. That's a .000047% chance of being murdered. That's half what it was when most of us twentysomebodies were being born (10.2 in 1980, the height). This begs the question, how much of our fear is irrational and damaging?

It's often easy to focus on the things working against us, but I challenge you to trust society, your co-workers, your friends, your lovers, yourself a little more.