Heyyyyy, how y’all doing? (You know the reference)

It’s been a bit since I’ve added to my blog, and, phew, I have been doing a lot in the meantime. Since my last blogpost (which thrillingly, yet unsurprisingly, sparked some debate but also some important discussion and education), I have:

• Attended my first major conference (Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL)
• Was invited to give my first ever oral presentation at an outside institution (Tri-Institutional Symposium on Reproductive Biology and Infertility at University of Pennsylvania) – a huge goal I had for my grad school experience
• I began conducting a *key* experiment for my upcoming manuscript and was given permission to start writing
• I was offered an internship at the Writing Services office
• I got my score back on my F31 grant I submitted last December (TBD on funding)

…and right now, at this very moment, I am at the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA working as a course assistant for the Endocrine-disrupting Chemicals: Hazards and Opportunities (ECHO) course.

So, all that to say, a lot has been going on in the meantime. And that’s just my professional life 😭

In my personal life, I was finally able to remove two major sources of stress from my life. And both happened to come to finality at the end of April. That last week of April was mad stressful for me, and so I decided that I was claiming May as my month of new beginnings. 

When I ended my relationship back in November, I’d told my friends that I was entering a new era and they were about to witness the happiest version of myself, blah blah blah. But, sadly, I don’t think that really happened. 

Then, when I moved into my own apartment earlier this year, I shared that sentiment again. But honestly? I was still stressed. I was happier, but not as happy as I knew I could be. 

SO NOW I AM SAYING IT AGAIN. And this time I really believe it. And this time I feel like I can feel it too. Which makes me think of one of my favorite memes:

You can always just decide that you are so back.

…so yeah, I’ve decided that I’m so back? And guess what?? Life has been…good? I feel like just in the first few weeks of May, I have gotten to share some really meaningful time with my friends, both old and new(er). I really am so grateful for the people I have in my life…I cannot say that enough. And it is because of my shared time with them that I have enjoyed my time alone more too. I’ve got a good balance (and routine) in my life now – balancing work, the gym, cooking, social life activities, chores, and time for myself.

I find myself worrying less about things and people that don’t really matter or aren’t relevant to my life anymore. Phew!

And I can feel – or rather sense – a monumental shift happening in my life. I don’t know exactly what it will look like, or what the outcome will be, but I can feel it happening, not just in my professional life, but in my personal life too. And I am excited by that. And I am excited about the people along on the journey with me 🙂

So all this to say, you really can just decide that you are sooo back – but you also have to put in work too. I am feeling happier and more fulfilled because of the time and energy that I put into healing myself, the time and energy I have put into developing meaningful relationships with my friends and our shared interest in spending time together doing things from watching Cat in the Hat on a Friday night to going out dancing until 2am the next weekend -, my consistent drive at work (even when I’m lowkey hating it – yeah, that was a tough month), and because of my ability to confront and remove stressors from my life.

A big lesson I’ve learned over these last three years is that I (and I mean this in the most professional way possible) ~don’t really fuck with~ people who cannot confront and discuss things with openness, honesty, and understanding. And this was a really big lesson I learned over the last year! Like I said, this is a blog about my experiences in graduate school, but also just living life in my twenties.
Last year was really tough for me (read more about that here) – but I really do have a good feeling about what lies ahead of me. Because, like I’ve said, we are so back 😎