It’s been a year since I graduated university

New Year's Day was on a Monday in 2024, and so this blog post was originally drafted as "A Perfectionist's Fantasy: New Year's Falling on a Monday." I thought this was a cosmic sign from the universe because I love Mondays, I love cyclical resets and the arbitrary meanings we give to certain days of the week. 

Spoiler alert: it wasn't a sign! 2024 was one of the hardest years of my life. To sum it up, the main drag was that I graduated from university without a clear plan, and have been navigating doing what I want to do and doing what I think I should be doing ever since. However, it's another year, and not once did I stick to my goal of writing a blog post a week in 2023. It's also June 2025, and this post was intended for January 2024! I'm a year and a half late to my own blog rejuvenation. 

It has been a couple years since I wrote on this blog, and I have a lot to say. It's been a bit of a task piecing together fragments of posts I've drafted, half sentences, and paragraphs about growing pains that end with lines like "I cannot see another BeReal of my ex and his new girlfriend or I might punch a hole in my wall."

Regardless of all the change that has crept its way into my life since January 2023, the date of my last post on here, I am also just honestly not as interested in the Blogger medium anymore. I have considered switching to a WordPress or a Substack, and most likely will, but just in case I keep this Blog around I wanted a wrap-up post that somewhat explains my leave of absence and also provides some insight into my mind over the past 2.5 years. 

What I've Been Up To

I revived this blog in 2020, and it's really hard for me to believe that 5 years ago Covid was starting in France. I was 18, living my dream, and ultimately felt like I was on top of the world. My first few posts were titled "Quarantine Love Letters" and I originally wrote them to help with my university applications, but then it turned into a fun project to work on during quarantine in the French countryside. 

6 years ago this past February I went to London for the first time, my first trip outside of North America in my life. I knew this then and I still know this now, that trip at 17 irrevocably changed the trajectory of my life. In the years that followed, I graduated high school and moved to 3 new cities: Paris, Vancouver, and Copenhagen. I made the most meaningful friendships, lost my grandfather and many extended family members in India, travelled to 16 new countries, fell out with my 2 childhood best friends, had 2 boyfriends, many situationships, graduated university with high distinction in sociology and law, worked for some super cool campus organizations, stayed at my friends family home in Tokyo, worked in fashion leading a lovely team as a store manager, visited and stayed with friends across the world, also hosting friends that visited me. I taught pilates, gave back to my communities, hiked around the Canadian Rockies, fell in love, went out to dance, had the best and the worst moments, met my Danish family for the first time, got closer with my parents, went on a siblings Toronto trip with my brother, expanded my sorority lineage to 4 incredible women, road-tripped to Washington for Trader Joes many times, got my heartbroken, broke hearts. 

To name a few things anyway. 

All this growing and moving and where am I now? 

Working at the same restaurant I worked at in high school. 

hahahahahahahaah. SO funny how life works. 

I am 23. I graduated from university in May 2024, and as a recent postgrad, this time of transition has undoubtedly been tough. I worked for 6 months in Vancouver after graduating, desperately clinging to staying in my university city where I had built amazing friends and memories over the past 3 years. But working to live and pay rent became unfulfilling, and I decided to quit my jobs, move my stuff back home to Alberta and travel for 6 weeks. I went to Japan and then around Europe, staying with friends and seeing new and old cities, some of which I had previously called home. Upon returning to Canada, I was faced with the inevitable realization that my life was not what I expected it to be postgrad. If you had asked me a year ago when I was walking across the stage in my cap and gown at UBC, moving back to my hometown and working at the restaurant I worked at in high school would have been my worst-case scenario. 

Post-Grad Lessons 

There are three stages of post-grad grief you must go through: 1. Facing moving home (unless you lived with your parents or nearby to your school), 2. Accepting that job security isn’t actually a thing at all as industries and technology constantly change, and that you will be trying to balance having money and doing what you love forever. 3. Travelling, once you start, is something you can never stop thinking about. Choosing to remain in one place and grow a life there is honourable, but there will always be an itch to move and start somewhere new once you do it. Here is how I am navigating these 3 points:

Over the harsh Alberta winter, I read the book Wintering by Katherine May, where she details that winter is irresistible, and change will happen in its wake whether we want it to or not. All we can do is put a different coat on, and hunker down inside to bear the storm. She also explains that "happiness is the greatest skill we'll ever learn, it is the product of our mind's potential to overcome." Simply put then- unhappiness serves a purpose, too. It alerts us that something is not right. "If we don't allow ourselves the fundamental honesty of our own sadness, then we miss an important cue to adapt," May writes. 

If living my worst-case scenario in Alberta over the winter meant that I got to reset, recharge, organize my belongings and save money, I still had a lot to look forward to, I concluded. And to be honest, in my last 2 Vancouver summers of 2023 and 2024, I was quite depressed. Definitely top-tier lows in my life. Both summers I was navigating difficult relationship breakups and friend breakups, was grieving moving back to Canada from study abroad and then the potential of moving home after grad. Having time to think about the last 5 years of my life when I moved out when I was 18, and have been moving ever since with no time to process anything seemed like an okay decision once I wrapped my head around moving home to my parents. If you are going through this decision right now, there is power in sticking it out, but there is also power in recognizing a problem and choosing to fix it, even if it is not entirely what you want to do. 

As for the job part, I have no answers quite yet. My glorious post-grad summer internship dreams did not pan out. Serving is making me more money than entry-level jobs in journalism, marketing, social media, law, or management roles would, which is sad I know. But I don't get to dictate the job market, so all I can do is keep applying, contemplate grad school, and keep adding people on LinkedIn. 

Lastly, on travel: Somedays (a lot of them lately) I wake up and wish I could be okay with living in the same place my whole life. I imagine dating the same person and getting married to them and then having kids and fulfilling the traditional nuclear family. I yearn to be satisfied with the quiet, humble day job that serves others and pays the bills. Returning home to a cozy house in my paid-off vehicle. Monotonous, maybe. But fulfilling? I'm sure it would be. That is unfortunately just not how my brain works (circling back to going to London at 17), and I actually have developed a fear of "settling down" too soon. 

Propaganda I am not falling for is people doing anything in their twenties other than school, work, travel, building friendships, dating, going out, and having fun. I firmly believe that your 20s are not for getting married, having kids, and swearing off alcohol. Like, women did not go through sexual and cultural revolutions for nothing. We can move freely in the world now and you're telling me you'd rather have a ring on your finger and get pregnant? Be for real. 

On Growing Pains

23 is statistically the worst age to be. Studies think this is due to most people finishing college around this time, awaiting the next life move. I learned that the hard way. Now, I am approaching my 24th birthday, and I think it will all be okay in the end. Of course, I can’t say for certain. But I think this summer will go down as the summer that Kate came to visit me from Ireland and we road-tripped across western Canada. The air smells like lilacs and rain, it is spring again, I can walk outside at 10pm and have it still be light out. Thinking about the girl who was bedridden during the last two Augusts seems so far away now, and that's a good thing. "There are things out there so good you wouldn't know to ask for them," is a line I come back to often. I also remind myself as a constantly nostalgic individual: that my commitment to the future must be stronger than my attachment to the past. That keeps me going. 

Growing up is hard, and I don't have the answers for that either. But I do know that I have always been the same person deep down. Somewhere in between then and now I still read books in every car ride even though it makes me dizzy. I still hope for Reese's peanut butter cups in every stocking and Easter basket. My Paris-themed room turned into living in Paris, my sparkling waters turned into gin and tonics, my pink jelly sandals turned into jelly heels, my love of red turned to hating it and then turned back to loving it when I bought a red scarf on one of my first days in Copenhagen. I like how it looks when I smile with teeth now, which I haven't done since the first grade. Ponytails are still the most practical hair choice. Sitting with my left leg tucked in is still the comfiest. I have been the same person over and over again, repeatedly, incessantly, even if I have strayed.

To conclude, here's a journal entry of mine from 2023 to remind me how far I've come (I've been to Japan now!!)

"It's Thursday, August 31st, and I think I have finally healed from this month. Listening to Kyoto as I wrap up my tasks for the day. I really want to go to Japan, I know I'll get there. I have great friends. The kind I can have fun nights with without trying, without a real plan until the moment. I am happy to be back in Vancouver. At last. It took a bit of convincing, but I am happy to be here. Happy to have the people in my life that I do."

If you've stuck it out this far into this chaotic post, thank you! I won't promise an update soon, but I will promise that I am determined to have an awesome summer, my first one in Alberta since 2021. I will make lemonade out of lemons and live in the moment. Pinky promise!