I’ve had my fair share of rejection.

I’m a 22 year old girl—it’d be impossible for me to have made it this far and not to have taken a couple of pretty hard hits right in the gut from Lady Rejection (Rejection is a lady. Trust me. And she’s kind of a bitch).

I’ve had small rejections, expected rejections, quick rejections, rejections that linger, rejections that took their time, rejections that build and harden. But there are some rejections that cut, that slice, that take something out of you and refuse to give it back. They scar. They’re few in number but they’re strong, the absolute worst type, and boy, have I had those too.

They’re the things I think about when I want to be upset—oh, don’t look at me like that, you do it too—when I’m already upset about something but that something is running out of steam. When I’m trying to hold onto the fists or the tears or that weird breathless feeling that bunches up right in the center of my chest (or, I guess, just a little bit to the left) where my heart is. They’re the things I’ll always remember, the things that, no matter my age or my situation, will always make me ache just a little.

There’s five of them, five rejections or categories of rejection, I guess, and I’ve been gathering them up my whole life—trying to make sure to cover all my bases, get a good, hearty collection going.

Of course, there’s the Boy Rejection, which actually comes in 3 convenient subsections—stranger, acquaintance, and, of course, friend.

Then there’s the Friend Rejection. Only one of those, I’m lucky there. But it’s the one the hurts the most, the one that stings, and refuses to heal even a little. The worst. Truly. The worst because it involves both lack of any real malicious intent on the speaker’s part and the cruelest words anyone has ever said to me. Ever. In my whole life.
Seriously.
But… I digress.

The last rejection falls into the School/Career/Hopes+Dreams category. This one is more of a builder… something that happens over time but then all at once. Where you take a chance, you go for something, you reach out, only to have your hand slapped away by some higher somebody in an office somewhere that doesn’t know you and never will. You get it.
I know you do.
We regret to inform you…
Yeah. Okay.

2013 has seen its fair share of rejection—in fact, one of the big five made its first appearance in 2013. Lucky me.

But, it’s not just the big one. In three months, a hundred new little nicks and cuts have shown up all over me, some red and raw, some shining white—little scars to remind me of everything that’s happened. And the thing is, no matter how hard I try to prepare, no matter how hard I steel myself for the next one, it always hurts just the same.

I’m gonna be honest with you—I live in constant fear of rejection. Everything I do or, more aptly, everything I don’t do is a product of this fear. I don’t want to be rejected. I’m not good at it. I can’t just move on (see above). I don’t use it to better myself. It’s not a pedestal on which I elevate myself to higher level. It just makes me sad. That sounds lame but it’s the truest way to put it—rejection makes me sad. It just makes me sad.

And that’s the real problem with it. At least for me.
Rejection is part of life.
Does it blow?
Oh, yeah.
But it is a necessary part of life.

It’s what you do with it, with that rejection, that really matters.
And right now, I’m not doing anything with it.
Well, I’m writing a blog post but that’s not what I’m talking about.

The point is, I’d like to start taking some of that rejection and using it for good.
Is it still gonna make me sad? Yeah. And the Big Five? The Big Five is always going to make me sad. The Big Five already happened. I already let them hurt me, already let them tear me up. And I’ll cling to those things. I’ll clutch them and cradle them and use them to beat myself up when I need to. Because sometimes you do need to. Sometimes its cathartic to just really, really hurt.

But the Big Five can do some good too. Well, maybe.
I’ll try to work something out—the Big Five and I aren’t really on speaking terms most of the time.

But some of that rejection… I need to start using it to motivate me. I don’t need to move on. Not completely. I don’t need to never look back. I just need to move past it. To see it and feel it but to not let it define me. So, that boy (and that boy and that boy) didn’t like me. So, my friend thought I’m… well, I’m not going to go there now. So, I didn’t get in.

All of that reflects more on them than on me. Because, yeah, those boys didn’t like me but somewhere, someday (hopefully, big fingers crossed on this one!!!), some boy will. That friend was shitty. Period. And I have plenty of other friends who can confirm that I’m fine/okay/good/great/amazing/varying degrees of awesomeness. And yeah, I didn’t get in. Yeah, maybe I wasn’t good enough. Is that hard to consider? Yeah. But there’s also a chance that it just wasn’t right. That it wasn’t meant to be. That I have other things to do.

It’s up to me to see what that Big Five Rejection is really telling me. It’s up to me to figure out what those other things I have to do are.

I’m starting… well, trying to realize that rejection doesn’t have to be an anchor. But I’m not saying it’s a buoy either. It’s not water wings. It’s not keeping me afloat.

Rejection is the great provoker, the great motivator. It’s that urgency in your lungs when you’ve stayed under for too long. It’s the tremble in your legs you try to ignore. But it’s the fight too. The final push. Your own stubbornness, your own refusal, to let it, to let anything, beat you.

Well, maybe this isn’t the final push for me. But it is a push.
And that’s good enough for now.
Because the next time The Big Five or any number of those little rejections that I (and you… us) face everyday come to visit, I’ll be a little bit closer to the surface.

And from what I hear, the water’s just fine.

So, I don’t do this. I don’t make resolutions. I’m honest with myself. I know who I am. I know what I am. 
And what I am is a lazy, unmotivated a-hole.  

But seeing as 2012 was pretty much the worst year ever (hooray), I decided maybe it’s time to start making some rezzies, maybe it’s time I actually start trying to change my life instead of just waiting around for something magical to happen. 

That’s not to say I won’t be doing a lot of waiting around for something utterly serendipitous and ballin’ to happen but, at the very least, I’ll be giving that something magical a push in the Meghan Wright direction, if you know what I mean. 

So here they are, a list of resolutions by yours truly for yours truly: 

Dear Me, 

Do this shit in 2012 and maybe things will start looking up.  

1. Become attractive enough to date Jack Whitehall or other Jack Whitehall-esque pretentious dickwad with a heart of gold.

SIDEBAR:  

• For those of you that don’t know who Jack Whitehall is, basically reassess your entire existence. 
• For those of you that have refused to reassess, just know that Jack Whitehall is pretty much my soulmate in that we are both the biggest douches you will ever meet but we mean well, really we do. Sort of.  

SubRes 1.5. Basically just become hotter. Also meaner. 

Which brings us to
2. Join a gym and (AND IS THE BIG PART) actually work out rather than just sit there on the bike, watching the little tv attached to the handles, thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch. 

Also
3. Try and eat healthy—just because gummy bears (and all other gummy substances) are green doesn’t mean they are an adequate substitute for vegetables. 

Short of completing rezzie number 1, rezzie number 4 will suffice.
4. Become something of a social butterfly, spreading broken, socially inept wings at last.

SubRes 4.5. Mack on Breaking Bad. And/or other appropriate/interested parties if they ever happen to arise which they probably won’t. 

5. Try and be less judgmental.

SubRes 5.5. Let’s just be honest, that’s never going to happen.

6. Finish all the TV you’ve been meaning to watch instead of rewatching series five of Doctor Who. 

SubRes 6.5. Stop trying to convince yourself that Doctor Who is real and is going to happen to you.  It isn’t. And even if it did, would you really want to do all that running? No. No, you would not. 

SubRes 6.75. Never stop trying to convince yourself that Doctor Who is real, you idealistic idiot. As for the running, that’s what inhalers are for. And since you’re still sitting on that bike, thinking about lunch, it’ll be a nice workout for you. 

7. Secure a job that does not involve folding string underwear. Or folding anything, really. 

8. Avoid the volatile stomach sickness you dealt with in both 2011 and 2012. Basically, let’s try and not vom on ourselves in public this year, okay?  

9. Learn to cook. Just a little. Not asking for gourmet, just basic life/survival skills. 

10. Keep writing. Anything. Everything. As a person who is good at very little in life, it’s important to do the things you’re actually okayish at. You’re okayish at writing. And if you keep working at it, you might actually get good at it. Hell, let’s strive for some real talent. 

SubRes 10.5. If you actually, by some miracle, manage to get into grad school, work your goddamn ass off. 

11. Don’t give up, don’t get down on yourself. Shit’s tough but so are you. You’ll get there. And if you don’t get there, you’ll at least get somewhere. Nowhere to go but up, am I right?

12. Spend less money, you asshole. This isn’t some romcom with Hugh Dancy and Borat’s wife. This is real life and if you don’t save your money you’re going to end up living with Mom and Dad for the rest of your sad and lonely life. 

SubRes 12.5. Which actually seems likely already but let’s try and get out while we can. 

SIDEBAR: 
MOM AND DAD ARE LOVELY, WONDERFUL PEOPLE BUT I DON’T WANT TO MAKE MY BED, OKAY? 

13. Say yes. 

 SubRes 13.5. And actually mean yes. 

So there you have it, some goals, affirmations, and real talk for 2013—the Year of Meghan as I so affectionately have just started calling it right now. 

And as a little incentive:

Where I hope to end 2013—in the bath with my one true love, clutching my Emmy after we get back from an intergalactic space journey with the Doctor (and all of his friends cause I’m no longer socially inept hooray), on which Jacky Baby and I did a lot of kissing through both space and time. 

 * * * 
Happy 2013, everybody! May all your resolutions not be forgotten three to ten days after writing a blog post about them like mine most inevitably and most definitely will be.  

Look, at least I can say I tried.
Already better than 2012.  
And if the best thing I get out 2013 is that stellar image shown above, well then, I think it’s safe to say, 2013 will be nothing short of a roaring success.  

IN THE MEANTIME, IT WAS LITERALLY PERF AND ALL Y’ALL SHOULD GO SEE IT!!! 

So, as I’m off being busy and really damn important in the land of retail, I don’t have the time to write you up some heartfelt blog post about how I’m dealing with life. 

However, this incident was too good to not tell the whole entire world—seriously, tell everyone! Shout it from rooftops and shit! 

Tonight at the Secret (it’s only ever at the Secret), a boyfriend/husband figure was so keen to express his closeness to his girlfriend/wife figure that he literally stood on top of her, like his body, was literally crushing into hers. 

Okay, Meghan, good one. Like we haven’t heard that before.
No! NO. It gets better.  

He was so committed to the closeness that he actually physically endured getting elbowed in the face/nose/the money twice by his girlfriend/wife figure’s elbow. TWICE.

She was fixing her hair and tossed her arm/elbow behind her, slamming it into his face. SLAMMING IT INTO HIS DAMN FACE. 

She apologized. They laughed.

But this was no mere accident.

COMMITMENT TAKES COMMITMENT.

Bro refused REFUSED to move back and a literal half-second later, it happened AGAIN.

Like, my man literally got full-force elbowed in the nose TWICE. 

His reaction? To laugh jovially (as I laughed jovially directly in his face), and to wrap his arm around his boo while blood gushed from his swelling nose*.

Oh, to find a love so very resilient, enduring, and strong. Those two kids inspire me. 

*This may be a slight exaggeration**. 

**It isn’t***.

***Okay, it is.  

So, it’s official. 
I’ve hit rock bottom.
Tonight, I went to see The Hobbit. 
And I was completely and totally one hundred percent alone.

Okay, okay, so I haven’t exactly just hit rock bottom. I’ve gone to see movies alone before—Slumdog, Star Trek, A Single Man, Paranorman—and to be honest, I’ve always sort of enjoyed it (save for Star Trek, which I watched on prom but that is another story for another day). I’m an only child—doing things alone doesn’t faze me. My whole life’s been alone and truly, it’s not so bad. I’ve never been embarrassed by my aloneness. I can sit in a restaurant and feel no shame. I can shop on my own and sit in bookstores alone and go swimming alone and wander alone.
I relish in it.
I call it independence.

But all that aloneness was chosen by this girl right here. I chose to do those things. I chose to eat those lunches with just my book and my bread. I chose to see Slumdog, enormous popcorn (no shame whatsoever) by my side. I had the option—I could’ve invited someone. There were people to invite. But, I just didn’t feel like it. I wanted that me time. I wanted that freedom (save for the Star Trek prom disaster but let’s not go there).

The Hobbit though, that was different. 
There was no one to invite.
If I wanted to see it, I had to brave it alone. 
And I really wanted to see it. 

This time, all that so called “independence” just felt really damn embarrassing. As I sat in that darkened theatre with my fellow nerds, I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d gotten there.  I love darkened theatres full of nerds. I love that sense of comaraderie, solidarity. I love that buzz, knowing just how much everybody cares, knowing that all those people care just as much as you do. But I wasn’t feeling the buzz this time. I felt shame, I felt those eyes on the back of my sloppily-bunned head. These bookish, Tolkienian, elfish-speaking assholes had all managed to scrounge together other bookish, Tolkienian, elfish-speaking assholes to sit with them—they all had friends.

 I had an overpriced soda. 

Yeah, yeah, you could say that we’re all friends in the long run—a group of people coming together in a solitary purpose. But it doesn’t feel like that when you’re sitting alone listening everyone else talking and laughing and gasping and clapping with people they actually know and actually like.

 And that’s when I realized—as it turns out, I don’t actually have any friends.

Okay, dramatic. Clearly, I have friends.
College friends. Real friends. I do have friends. 
I DO. I swear. 
(Really).
They all just so happen to be in different states and different countries doing different things and living different lives.

And yeah, I have home friends too.
Home friends who I love and adore and who very much so complete me and make me happy and would love (okay, maybe not love) to go see The Hobbit.

 The problem is that when you go away to college, make all those new friends, do all those things…when you go away to grow and learn and stretch, you forget that everybody else is doing that too.

All those home friends aren’t just going to wait around while you grow and learn and stretch. They’re gonna be doing their own growing and learning and stretching.
Nobody’s going to just wait around for you.
And they shouldn’t.
…But couldn’t they, please?

So, there you are, stuck in a sort of Bermuda Triangle of Doom, the one all college grads find themselves in without getting to take the cruise first. 

You have friends (you really do, as you keep having to remind yourself) but you also don’t because none of them are around and even if they are around, they’re busy having that life they grew into while you were busy growing into yours.

And I know what you’re going to say—well then, why don’t you just go out and make some new friends?

 The answer to that, of course, is that I don’t know how. 
And neither do you, so shut up, you prick.

I (we) have been in school for the last, what?, 16 years of my/our lives, right? We went to the same place every single day and saw the exact same people. School is a breeding ground for friendship. It’s hard not to find at least one someone to like you and if you can’t do that, well then, surely there’s someone who will, at the very least, tolerate you. You share things—like classes and hatred of those classes. You’re forced to do projects together and attend things together and run laps together and eat slop together. You have stuff in common, whether you like it or not. 

School, college even, is small. It’s a community and you’re a part of it and there’s no way out until, of course, you graduate.

Everything else—not so small anymore. You don’t automatically have things to talk about with people. You can’t complain about running those laps in gym class or how bad that teacher is. You can’t just join a club. You don’t have that automatic jumping off point.  You have to work to make a conversation work.

 Yeah, alright, there is work. But as some of us haven’t managed to secure a real-people job (I’m sorry. Feel free to call me out on this—I already know I’m a dick), it can be hard to find like-minded people. You can complain about that annoying boss but short of that, who’s to say you have anything else in common? The people you work with are not necessarily striving for the same things as you. In high school, pretty much everyone is striving for college. In college, pretty much everyone is striving for a job. In the real world, people are striving for everything. You’ve got screenwriters and math people and hairdressers and doctors. You’ve got people who like books and don’t like books, people who think The Bachelor is a quality show, people who know better. Everything and everyone is so vast and massive, it’s really hard to find that one person who’s going to get you, let alone several that you can invite into a Happy Endings-esque friends group that you meet at the bar after work or for brunch.

 And let’s be real here, meeting new people is terrifying (if you don’t agree, just leave right now).
I don’t know how to reel people in. I’m a weirdo. I’m not good at talking. I’m certainly not charming. And I think it’s safe to say, I’m not attractive in a way that really draws people to me (and if I am (I’m not), I definitely can’t keep them there).
I’m sort of just here, blobbing around. I talk about TV. I talk about movies. I eat some cookies. I probably talk about eating those cookies. I blob. It’s all very simple and compact. I don’t know how to be interesting mostly cause I’ve never had to be before. 

 So, what now? 
I really have no idea.
Do I try and infiltrate the nearest high school ala 21 Jump Street? Seems like a bad idea.
What about a local college? Less bad but still pretty bad.
Does my future include more lonely movie trips? Probably… yeah, definitely.

I don’t have any answers on this one. No hopeful, upbeat words of wisdom.
I’ll probably just continue to blob around, uncertain, stuffing my mouth with food so I don’t have to talk to anyone.

I’ll be lonely. I’ll be friendless. 
But at least it’ll be my choice.
My depression-ridden, cookie-fueled, teary-eyed choice.

And hey, there’s probably some really great Tolkien-themed, online chatrooms I could check out. 
Though, I bet you have to know some Elvish… 

So, I work in retail.
What? WHAT?
I know. I KNOW. You totally, one hundred percent had no idea. I’m blowing your minds right now.
You did know? Weird, don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it before.

So, in case you didn’t know (go on and humor me), let me just say it again—I work in retail. And as a person who works in retail (specifically during the holidays), I encounter a lot of couples—two people who are at least marginally committed to each other who have inexplicably decided to spend their day in Satan’s Lair (aka a mall). They walk around clutching to each other like they have uncompromising rigamortis, asking each other questions like, “What are you getting your sister?” or “Can I have a sip of our shared drink because we are cheap assholes and feel that closeness can be found in a single straw?” (I may be paraphrasing here).  They answer each other in hushed, quivering voices, thrusting lace string underwear at each other, trying to decide if it is, in fact, appropriate to give dad’s new girlfriend/your sister/my brother’s wife/any variation or combination of those things, a thong for Christmas (the answer to which, of course, is no). And then they shuffle up to my line, hands in each other’s back pockets before one of two situations happens—the girlfriend/wife figure shoves her enormous purse into the boyfriend/husband figure’s arms without asking and rifles through it in search of her already maxed-out Angel Card or the girl feigns ignorance when asked to pay and stares at the boyfriend/husband figure with doe eyes that somehow suggest that he may get lucky in the near future (he won’t).

I watch this happen.
Day in.
Day out.
Watch these people who are supposedly in love or like or lust or who are, at the very least, contractually obligated to each other, get in fights and complain and take advantage and just be so damn annoyed with absolutely everything. I watch as boyfriend/husband figure’s shell out hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on panties (collective groan on three…) or entire bedazzled, velour sweatsuits with matching t-shirts. I watch as girlfriend/wife figure’s buy obscene amounts of the world’s most useless underwear and push-up bras (your ladies could be seen from space in these suckers, let me tell you) to match.

All of it done to make some other person happy. And yet, there they are, fighting and huffing and gritting their teeth and pretending .

Now, it’s Christmas, I’m sure (hoping, really) that all the purse shoving and rigamortis love is just a side-effect of the hap-happiest season of all. But just in case, I’ve decided to write up a little letter to my future sigfig, outlining all the things I think will make us very happy in the future. 

It’s a masterpiece.
And I mean every word.

TO MY BOO,

I promise to never/I will never: 
1. Force you to come to any sort of shopping event such as Black Friday (known in some places (like my heart) as Satan’s Birthday). 
2. Put my hand in your back pocket. Let’s be honest, my arms aren’t long enough and we’re just going to end up in some sort of jilted, awkward trot just to make sure everyone knows I’m/you are hitting that. 
3. Shove my purse anywhere in your vicinity. As I’m the one who chose to bring in my massive, back-breaking carryall full of everything in the entire world, I’m the one who should have to drag it around the store behind me like an unyielding shackle of death.
4. Make you pay for shit. Yeah, go on and buy me dinner. Take me to the movies. Sure. But I will not pull out those “you gettin’ the dome” eyes just so you’ll pay for some overpriced velour sweatsuit (insert things that I would actually want because come on) that I do not need. 
5. Make you watch any sort of chickflick/romcom that does not have my stamp of approval. Movies like Just My Number have their place and that place is pretty much anywhere that you are not. 
6. Talk** about things you really, really don’t care about like Lisa’s coworker’s sisters affair or Urban Decay’s newest eye shadow or all those things that I inevitably will care about because I am a girl and oooh shiny/xoxo gossip girl. 
6.5. **Addendum—Well, at least I’ll try not to talk about them.  
7. Meet my parents before you’re ready. 
7.5. Complain when you’re not ready to meet my parents just two months in because yeah, it is really daunting and my parents are wonderful anyway so you better be prepared to knock their socks off. 
8. Force you to do some lame Halloween couple’s costume. 
9. Share a straw with you. 
10. Get mad at you about ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN

I promise to/I will: 
1. Go see every action/sci-fi/horror film you want because that shit’s the best. 
2. Do beer and burgers. Nachos. Etc. 
3. Participate in light to moderate PDA if the time and place is right (is it really ever right?).
4. Give you thoughtful gifts every once in a while because I am clearly a generous loving human being**. 
4.5. **Addendum—I’m not. 
5. Make you watch chick flicks/romcoms that do have my stamp of approval like Love Actually or yeah, okay, that one scene from Just My Number where Chris Evans sings that song and then they play horse in Madison Square Garden—it’s a good time for everybody, I promise. 
6. Talk about the things you care about even if I don’t because I care about you. 
7. Knock your parent’s socks off with my lovely, feminine charm. 
8. Force you to do a ballin’ couple’s Halloween costume like Moonrise Kingdom or Batman and Christian Bale’s weird eye mole. 
9. Get two straws, one for each of us, and then use both as my own super straw. 
10. Only get mad at you about things that make sense like… honestly, the only example I can think of is if you DVR over my shows, you asshole. 

Those weird things that fall into relationship limbo:  
1. Yes, I am going to finish that. Always. You cannot have my french fries. 
2. I am going to order things with french fries. Always. 
3. Can I have your french fries?
4. Really?
5. Thanks.  
6. You cannot buy me lingerie because that’s too much pressure. 
7.  But maybe I’ll buy some when I’m good and ready to get the deeeeeeeeee. 
8. I will try not to grumble about attending sporting events.
9. I will probably grumble about attending sporting events.  
10. But that’s okay, I’m just going to fall asleep anyway.
11. I am going to quote that line from that movie way too much. 
12. But you can do it too so that’s okay. 
13. I probably snore.  
14. Sorry in advance.
15. The dog/cat/pet of any kind is more important than you. 
16. And you accept that. 
17. In turn, I will accept your faults and flaws to the best of my ability short of you murdering someone or I find out you were catfishing me over the internet and you’re actually someone’s mom. 

Basically, beeabe, we gon’ work it out. The only rigamorits we got is rigamortis of the heart. 

…That sounded more romantic in my head.

Love always,
Ya boo / favorite asshole

Well, well, well—look who’s back for the time being and very much prepared to disappoint you. 
I know I promised you a return in 6 to 8 weeks and I know I’m late but it’s only by… what? 4 weeks? 5? 6? 7? It’s seven isn’t it? I didn’t go to school for math and this doesn’t interest me, so basically the point is—I’m late and I’m not very sorry about it.

What have I been up to, you ask? You’re not asking?
Rude.
Understandable.

But to answer my own question—not much. Okay, lying a bit there. I have two jobs in the literal hell that is retail and I am working on two screenplays for my grad school application.

But in terms of what I’m doing to contribute to society? Now that… that truly is not a single, solitary thing.

Zip.
Nada.
Zilch.
Nothing!

And it’s absolutely killing me, smalls(‘s).

Let’s be real, here—I love my leisure time. There is nothing I love more than sitting down in front of the TV, sandwich in hand, and watching eighteen straight hours of House Hunters or, if I’m lucky, House Hunters International. I love it.  So much so that I’m 100% certain that my personal Eden would involve a hoagie platter and a flat screen that could be seen from space.

But the only way all of that is even a little bit alright is if I work hard in the meantime. I have to earn my right to laze.

And all these years, I have definitely been earning it. School and work and more school. Papers and papers and papers and papers, an infinite loop of never-ending papers (Ah, to be an English student again!). All of that gave me a sense of purpose.

And that sense of purpose was great. It was small but it was something. I was working towards something. I was working towards my future.
Okay, maybe that isn’t that small after all. 

But right now, I’m working towards nothing.

I mean, I guess I’m working towards getting into grad school (and then who knows what’ll happen). And I’m most certainly working towards paying back my massive, all-consuming debt one minimum wage paycheck at a time.

But, other than that, I’m not really working towards anything.

I guess the crux of this big ol’ complainfest is to say, I always thought my life would go a certain way. I watched too many movies, read too many books, and let’s not forget about the TV. We can’t possibly forget about the TV. 

And I thought my life would play out just like that. There’d be a montage. Boxes as I move into my perfect brownstone walk-up, paint splattered all over my clothes as I redecorate, a chance meeting with a charming stranger by a fountain, cafes and snow and twinkle lights, a really, really awesome job. 

I’m not saying that I should be there right now. I’m just saying it’s hard when you feel like you’re not even on the right path. Selling overpriced bras and bedazzled (and equally overpriced) underwear* certainly wasn’t part of my life plan… and I bet it’s not part of yours either so I you’ll forgive me for all of this whining. 
(*PS I work at Victoria’s Secret.  Oh, and The Limited but we don’t sell bras there—just overpriced suit pants and sweaters.)

So, Meghan, what is it exactly that you’re trying to say? 
Truthfully, I’m not too sure. This isn’t the type of post I’m going to end with some clever quip about hope and perseverance.  About how selling bras builds real and tangible character. 

I’m lost. I’m totally lost.
And some days… well, somedays that’s almost too much.
The only solace I can take is that I’m not the only one. 
There’s tons of us. 
Millions of us lost boys and girls.  
All of us with our expensive degrees and uncertainty.  

But there’s something else in all of us too. 
And we can’t forget that. Even though it’s easy to. Even though I usually do. 
We’re smart. We’re hardworking. And we’re sure as hell not going to give up.
We’ve gotta, gotta remember—we’re young. We’re so young. And we’re built of something stronger than we even know. We’re made for all these knocks, all these tumbles, all this heartbreak and confusion. 
And we will get there. We’ll get our montages. Our perfect apartments, our chance meetings, our really, really awesome jobs. 

The key is to keep fighting. Punch. Kick. Write our screenplays. Sell some bras. Apply, apply, apply! Laugh. Let ourselves feel really bad sometimes (cause we do) and not feel any guilt about that. Go on and wallow. Go out. Dance. Love our friends. Love our family. Love ourselves. 

And at the very least, we have to try and own the fact that we’re lost. When else in our lives will we be given this huge free pass to just be lost? We’re young and lost and nobody can say shit about it because quite frankly, they were lost when they were our age too.
Let’s be lost while we can. 
Let’s revel in it.
Take our time with it.  

And then let’s get up. Let’s push back. 
Let’s get found. 

Okay, so I lied. 
Hope and perseverance.
Real and tangible character. 

What can I say, I’m nothing if not an optimist.  

Yeah, yeah, yeah—I know. 
I have been a terrible blogger lately. Probably the worst in the history of all bloggers who have ever blogged and for that, I am as sorry as a person whose greatest joy in life is doing nothing possibly can be. 
(By the way, I’m the person whose greatest joy in life is doing nothing. In case you were confused. You probably weren’t.) 

There’s no real use in making excuses but I’m going to make some anyway because that’s who I am. And I figure if I can’t even take the time to make something up, well then, I’m an even worse blogger than I originally thought.

Basically, I’ve been busy. 

I’ve been working. 
Here are some highlights:

• Watching children swim in a pool while I bake in 100 degree blistering heat 
• Watching children watch TV (I know the whole Shake It Up theme song now. Is this something to be proud of? Yes.) 
• Watching children complain because they have to read books for school that are literally 112 pages long like Andrew Clement’s whale of a book, Frindle

I went to California for 10 days on vacation.
Here are some highlights: 

• Traveled the coast, taking in gorgeous… well, everything
  
• Enjoyed not baking in 100 degree weather and watching children swim by swimming in 70 degree weather by myself
• Had my first (but certainly not last) taste of In-n-Out Burger
  
• Vomited on myself (and everyone around me) on an airport shuttle bus 
• Yes, you read right. I, Meghan Wright, a 22 year-old person vomited on myself on an airport shuttle bus
• And yes, that airport shuttle bus was, in fact, only feet from the airport and the airport toilets where I subsequently continued to vomit in for several hours

In other news, I have also seen several movies including:

• Brave
• Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
• Safety Not Guaranteed
• Magic Mike 
• The Amazing Spider-man 
• Savages
• The Dark Knight Rises

Hey guys, just wanted to shoot you a quick update. I apologize for being a very bad blogger (I’m working on it, I swear.)
I’ve been very busy this week–I started two (yes, two) new jobs and have been working on getting settled in at each of them.
Thanks for sticking with me. From now on, I’m gonna make sure I start shaving out a little time to blog at least 2-3 times a week.

In the meantime, enjoy this picture of a pair of pugs:

Maybe you can’t forgive me but how can you stay mad at a face like that?  

And FYI, my face also sort of looks like that.
You know what they say–pets and their owners tend to look alike.

PROOF:
 
Try staying mad at me now, suckers!  

So, this is pretty much flawless. 
Also, they are 12 and 8.
GOOD.