Stephany Writes

Categories: About Me

Unapologetic

I’ll admit that every now and then, I’ll succumb to the draw of The Bachelorette, and this season, I’ve been watching. It’s research! (Right?) So, a couple of weeks ago, it was “hometown” week where the bachelorette meets with each remaining contestant in their hometown to get to know their family. And, during one visit, a contestant’s sister sat down with her brother and asked him this question: can you be yourself with her, unapologetically?

Ooh, that’s good. That’s real good.

I’m not dating right now because I needed to step away and figure myself out. I felt that I was dating just to date because it was what I was supposed to be doing. Every time I would hear about another person I knew finding love, my heart would sink, my stomach would knot up, and I would fall into a downward spiral of panic and anxiety and wondering when it would be my turn. If it would ever be my turn.

So, this quote really made me step back and think. Everyone says you have to love yourself before you can love another, and I always thought that was a little cheesy and hokey. But maybe loving yourself isn’t so much about standing in front of the mirror and saying, “You are beautiful and funny and nice!” but about being unapologetically yourself.

Maybe that’s what’s missing.

People say that your twenties are a period of self-exploration. I won’t lie – my twenties have been a bumpy, bumpy road. I look at people in their thirties and they seem so self-assured and as if they know themselves and where they are going. And me? Oh, goodness, I am fumbling around in the dark. I’m confused and worried and upset and annoyed, yet also satisfied and content and happy and excited. Oh, it’s a whirlwind, the twenties are!

I’ve been reading through posts I wrote when I started this blog – and I was just 21 when I started it. I was a baby! I feel so sad for that girl because she was really, really confused. This is a girl who didn’t have any friends (no, really, my mom was the only person I hung out with), who didn’t quite know herself. And the things I did understand about myself I didn’t like – I hated being shy, being an introvert, being a homebody. I was filled up with anxiety every single day but didn’t know what to call this incessant panic and fear I carried with me every day.

I’ve grown in the past five years, but I still have a lot – a lot – of growing to do. And part of that growth involves learning how to be unapologetically myself.

Being unapologetically myself means…

  • Embracing my introverted ways and realizing two to three hours is my limit with being around people.
  • Learning to be okay that I’m in my mid-twenties and still live at home. This is not a character flaw. This is just part of my story.
  • Understanding that I am a highly sensitive person that gets easily overwhelmed and doesn’t like loud spaces or chaotic environments. And that I most likely get my feelings hurt waaaaay more often than other people.
  • Opening up about my faith and the role it plays in my life, even if I do feel like the worst follower of Christ 95% of the time.
  • Realizing that I’m just a quiet person. I’m not the one initiating conversation or making small talk to strangers. And while I will open up and be more outgoing the more I know a person/group, I’m also always going to be the quietest one in the gathering.
  • Embracing my bookish nature, and that my love for reading mainly falls for silly romance novels, chick lit, and women’s fiction.
  • Owning the fact that I am a homebody and that nights in will always be more glorious to me than nights out. I don’t like being out past 11 p.m. any night of the week because it just makes me anxious, and I really don’t like being busy on weeknights.
  • Recognizing that it’s okay if I don’t have a lot of experience with guys. There’s nothing wrong with being 26 and realizing the furthest you’ve gone with a guy is first base.

These are my truths and writing them out helps me to see who I am and what I want. I’m not ready to reactivate my online dating profiles, but I’m doing the work to get to a point where I can do so. I think one of the first steps is discovering what I am really seeking from a relationship because there’s no point in dating unless I understand why I want it. And, through these truths, I can start to form a picture of not only what I want out of dating, but how I want to date. But perhaps that’s a post for another time.

For now, I want to embrace these truths I’ve listed above. And start to recognize that it’s okay to be single, it’s okay to have very little experience with guys, and it’s okay to be me. I believe dating will come a lot more easily once I own that.

What does being unapologetically yourself mean to you?

Categories: About Me

On Purpose & Passions

I went to a blogging event last week. One of my good friends that I met through book club is a local food blogger and she gets invited to fun events all the time because of her blog (and she’s got some sort of Yelp status? I dunno. I don’t “Yelp,” so I don’t know what that means). So, she invited me along and it was fun. It was also strange because I wasn’t exactly there as a blogger, just as my friend’s “plus one.”

For some reason, being at the event made me take a good, hard look at my blog and what I am hoping to gain from it. Why do I blog? What’s my purpose? Why do I spend hours and hours of my week writing posts and responding to emails and reading other blogs? Do I want to make this more of a career? Should I be concerned about SEO-friendly blog post titles and figuring out my “brand” (god, that word makes me cringe!) and seeking out ways to monetize?

I feel like, since my main love is writing, I should want to use my blog to establish a freelancing side hustle that allows me to someday quit my job to pursue that full-time. But the truth is that working for myself isn’t appealing to me. I don’t yearn to work from home (I actually think, as a shy introvert, working in an office is good for my social development skills) or to be able to make my own hours or any of that. I actually enjoy the office atmosphere, and I like the steady paycheck, benefits, and experiences I wouldn’t get working by myself. So, no, I’m not looking to turn my blog into a business.

My blog is my hobby. It’s not about building a brand or making money. I don’t give two hoots about SEO. (Since I work in SEO content writing, I understand it’s important, but for a personal blog? Ehh.) So if it’s not about that, what is it about? Why do I care so much about my blog that I spend so much time on it?

I blog to have a space to open up about my life. To give voice to my feelings, insecurities, triumphs, and failures. To gain knowledge, to give knowledge. To let others know they aren’t alone, and to have other people tell me I am not alone.

I blog because I love it. It’s fun for me. It’s exciting to write blog posts and connect with other bloggers.

I blog because I have met some of the most amazing, inspiring people from it, people who get me and who I considered some of my dearest friends.

I blog because it has made my life fuller and more open to new experiences. I honestly don’t think I would have ever joined my book club if I didn’t have blog friends pushing me to do so. And joining that book club? Hands down, it is one of the best decisions I’ve made in the past few years.

I blog because writing is my passion and I need a creative outlet for this passion.

I blog because I have to. There is a pulsing need inside me to get my words out, even if it’s as mundane as a “Five for Friday” recap.

I blog for my readers. Because there’s no point in having a public blog if you didn’t want someone to read it. I blog for the ones who challenge me, the ones who push me, the ones who give me hope and guidance and advice. I blog for the camaraderie and the thrill of finding someone you click with so well, you forget that you’ve never met them face-to-face and that they live hundreds of miles away.

That is what blogging is about for me. It’s not about sponsored posts or advertisements on my sidebars or money. It’s about the pure love of the written word, about writing my story down, about the connections I have made. I probably will never get involved in the local blogging scene in my area, mainly because they write the kinds of blogs I don’t read. The blogs I love tell me their story. They tell me the good and the bad, they are vulnerable and share their hearts.

My whole purpose with this blog is to share my heart. That’s all I’m here for. That’s all I want to be known for.

Why do you blog?

Categories: About Me

My Ideal City

myidealcity

I have never seriously contemplated moving out of state. I honestly love where I live. I love the climate, love living so close to so many family members (most especially my mom and brother and nephew!), and love the abundance of things to do. (The beach and the pool and the theme parks and the museums and the sporting events and the zoo and the aquarium and the local events…)

But, last week, I read Kathleen’s post where she linked to a cool quiz about where your ideal cities are. The quiz is fairly detailed but didn’t take long for me to complete, and I was given 24 cities that fit my profile. While I do love living in Florida (nope, 80-degree Christmases do not bother me one bit!), it’s not completely off the table for me to move out of state. It’s not something that I see happening in the next five years, but you never know where life will take you.

When I think about moving to a new state, the number one concern I have is the climate. I have very thin skin when it comes to cold weather, so I wouldn’t want to move somewhere that experiences really cold, snowy winters (so, basically, the entire Midwest is out!). But I would like to live in a place that actually experiences seasons. Florida does not have seasons. We have hot weather and cold weather. Fall doesn’t exist. So it would be nice to be able to live through the four seasons!

Another concern I have about moving to a new state is the cost of living. I definitely couldn’t live somewhere with a higher cost of living (goodbye, California!). The Tampa metro area’s cost of living is okay. It’s not impressive, but it’s easier to live on my modest income here than it would be in, say, San Francisco or NYC or Boston. So any city I’d move to, I’d want to be a similar cost of living or better.

And, lastly, I don’t think I’d like to live in a big city. The Tampa Bay area is pretty large (with nearly 3 million people residing in the metro area), but it doesn’t have a big city feel. I live in a more suburban part of the area, and I like living in the suburbs, with easy access to our downtown areas, beaches, and other waterfront.

So, what were my results from the quiz? Here were the top five cities I was given:

1. Chapel Hill, NC

2. Durham, NC

3. Greenville, NC

4. Rocky Mount-Stony Creek, NC

5. Hampton, VA

Interesting, eh? Four cities in North Carolina are in my top five! It ended up that I had seven total cities in North Carolina on my list so that state is winning in regards to the most popular “ideal” state. I do think I would enjoy North Carolina, though. It seems to have a mildish climate and the cost of living is about the same as Tampa (but in most cases, even better!).

Also on the list, albeit in the lower spots, were four Florida cities: Clearwater (a local city that I may move to next year), Sarasota, Daytona Beach, and Bradenton. So it’s good to know I am living in the right state!

All of my answers were on the East Coast (probably due to my low cost of living needs!) falling in North Carolina (7), Virginia (5), Florida (4), Georgia (2), Tennessee (2), Mississippi (1), Oklahoma (1), Kentucky (1), and South Carolina (1). What can I say? I’m a Southern girl to my core. And I am not ashamed of that one bit.

When I looked through my results and did a little research on the climates, costs of living, and other factors, here are the three cities I decided would be a good match for me:

  • Durham, NC
  • Savannah, GA
  • Charlotte, NC

This list isn’t necessarily in order from most favorite to least favorite, but it’s in order of how the quiz listed my ideal cities (2nd, 13th, and 15th).

Durham was my second most ideal match, and I think it’s a really great option. The cost of living is similar to Tampa, it’s a smaller city but close to a big city (Raleigh), and it has a mild climate. It would give me the seasons I want to experience, with not too harsh of a winter. It seems like such a pretty city, too!

Secondly, I chose Savannah, GA. I love Georgia. I’ve visited multiple times because I have family near the Atlanta area, and it’s one of my favorite states. Savannah itself has a very low cost of living (the housing market especially!) compared to Tampa. While the climate is fairly similar to Florida’s, I still added to my list because I really think I’d enjoy living in this city. It seems to fit my personality!

Lastly, I chose Charlotte, NC because even though a certain blogger friend of mine had a terrible experience living there, everything I read and see about the city I really like. The climate isn’t too extreme, but different enough to give me a taste of actual seasons. It has a similar cost of living to Tampa, and while it’s a bigger city than I’m used to, I still think it would be a fun place to live. Lots to do and see!

Okay, so this post was rather pointless because I’m not actually seriously considering moving to a new city anytime soon. But it was fun to daydream about it! Obviously, I’d never just up and move to a new city without traveling to the area and scoping things out first. But you never know where the future leads. All I know is that I’m leaving my heart open to the possibility, but also knowing I am building a beautiful life I really love in Florida.

Have you taken this quiz? What were your top five answers? If you could move to a new city, where would you move to?

Categories: About Me

Q & A

Last week, Kathleen tagged me in this fun little meme and since I love doing question-and-answer type posts, I thought I would play along today. Feel free to fill this out on your own blog or answer in the comments!

1. What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Usually, I’ll check my email on my phone and check my notifications. The first thing I do after getting out of bed is going to the bathroom and taking Dutch on a morning walk.

2. What do you eat for breakfast?

Lately, it’s been string cheese and a big bowl of fruit salad (my favorite mixture: watermelon, strawberries, and pineapple!). I’ll also have a hard-boiled egg 1-2 hours later.

3. What’s your go-to weeknight meal?

I love leftovers and I don’t love cooking, so I try to only make 1-2 actual meals a week. An easy weeknight meal that I’ve been having lately is baked chicken nuggets which are super easy to make and delicious.

4. Do you do any kind of journaling or memory keeping?

Aside from my blog, no. I’ve tried to start journaling, just to get things out of my head that I can’t (won’t?) talk about on my blog, but I’m not very good about remembering to do so.

5. How do you fix your coffee, or do you prefer tea (or neither)?

Usually with two creamers and a sprinkle of sugar. Or as a Frappuccino, which is my preferred way to take my coffee, albeit not a very healthy way.

6. What’s the last good book you read?

Oh, I really loved Attachments by Rainbow Rowell. I read it during my cruise and it was such a sweet, cute read. I definitely recommend it!

7. If you had a day all to yourself with no schedule, how would you spend it?

I would be the laziest. It would be embarrassing to even write it down because it would just involve a lot of napping, reading, and binge-watching TV shows.

8. What are three things on your life list?

Travel to Europe, get a tattoo, and skydive.

9. When you really need to relax or de-stress, where do you go and what do you do?

A nice, long bubble bath helps. Settling down with a good book. If it’s work or having so much on my plate that’s stressing me out, writing out a long to-do list helps me to see the big picture and start knocking off tasks. And if I’m stressed out about a situation, talking helps tremendously. My mom is the absolute best at helping me talk through my stress and realize what I’m freaking out about isn’t a big deal, probably because we are so eerily similar that she understands what I’m going through firsthand.

10. What’s on your nightstand?

I have a coconut that I bought on a cruise that’s filled with coins, an old-fashioned alarm clock, a lamp, a rolled-up shopping bag, and the current book I’m reading.

11. What’s the last thing you do before you go to sleep?

I set my alarm (I love to Sleep Cycle app!) and I make sure Dutch is in a comfortable spot. He likes to burrow under the covers with me, so I just make sure he’s a) giving me enough room to sleep (he likes to stretch out length-wise across the bed sometimes) and b) has enough air.

What’s the last good book you read? What are three things on your life list?

Categories: About Me

On Being an Adult. Sorta.

I’m in a weird stage of life. I’m in the latter half of my twenties, which feels strange to say because most days, I still feel like I’m 16. I’m closer to 30 than 20. Honestly, so far, I have really enjoyed my twenties. I still have a good three-and-a-half years left to enjoy them, and it hasn’t been all rainbows and butterflies, but I have grown so much in these past six-and-a-half years. Like most people, my twenties have been a period of self-discovery, of trying to figure out who I am and what I want from life. But still, it’s weird to realize where I am now and that I am no longer a kid, even though I feel like I still am most of the time.

This post, inspired by one Gina wrote, has been on my mind to do and I thought I would finally get it out of my head and onto my blog today. This is me at 26, and all the ways I feel like an adult and all the ways I still feel like a kid. (This will be fun to look back on when I’m turning 30, I think!)

Ways I Feel Like an Adult

  • My career. I have really struggled with defining myself by my job for the majority of my twenties. I think it’s something a lot of us do, especially once we graduate college and we have to find a perfect job that looks impressive when we’re talking to other people. I didn’t have a great first job after college and I dealt with a lot of job-related anxiety because of that, but it has helped me to grow up, learn about office politics, and be accountable. And now, after losing my way a bit in my mid-twenties, I finally feel like I’m on the right track for what I want to do for the rest of my life and there’s nothing more empowering or adult-like than that!
  • Dealing with my debt. I spent way too many years pretending my debt didn’t exist or that putting my school loans in forbearance is what I “had to do.” This is a very immature way of looking at finances, money, and debt. I’m glad I’m finally taking action and understanding that it’s very important to take care of your debt because that’s what responsible grown-ups do. Plus, debt is something I don’t want following me throughout my thirties, either.
  • Paying bills. Can I just say how much joy I receive by paying my bills? Because I do. I just kinda enjoy the feeling of paying a bill, even if it’s not always fun to see my bank account dwindle in the process.
  • Grocery shopping and cooking for myself. Up until the beginning of this year, my mom and I were grocery shopping together and eating our dinners together. We still grocery shop together most weeks because it’s convenient, but at the beginning of this year, we started separating and making our own meals. (Partly because she went Paleo and I didn’t want to go Paleo.) It’s been fun to do this because it gives me more control over my meals and what I want to eat, and I always found cooking to be a very Adult thing (just me?). I enjoy finding new recipes, meal planning, and grocery shopping just for me.
  • Being accepting of myself. I’m shy. I’m quiet upon meeting new people. I’m a highly sensitive person. Too many conversations or loud music is overstimulating for me. I’m an introvert to my core. I like to stay in most nights. Trying new things is scary for me, but I always feel better by doing so. I would prefer to spend time with animals than people. Bars are not my scene and never have been. I can’t do small talk. I’m extremely funny once you get to know me. All these things? They have taken a long, long time for me to accept that this is me. This is what I like. This is who I am and how I was created. It’s taken me a long time to realize this doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with me or I need to come out of my shell or I’m boring. I’m just me and I really like me and I’m excited to grow even more into who I am throughout the rest of my life.

Ways I Still Feel Like a Kid

  • Living with my mom. It’s hard to feel like an adult when you live with your mom. While it’s honestly the best situation for me to be in, and living with her is pretty awesome, there’s also a defeatist feeling to acknowledge that I still live with my mom. I don’t think I will really feel like a bona fide Adult until I move out on my own.
  • Not being married, or having ever been in a serious relationship. Nothing makes me feel like I’m behind the curve more than realizing I’m 26 and I’m not married, nor have I ever been in a serious relationship. It makes me feel like something is wrong with me! And maybe there is. Who knows! Or maybe it just hasn’t been my time yet. (We’ll go with that answer, ‘kay?)
  • Looking perpetually like a teenager. I don’t really mind that I look very young for my age, but it really doesn’t help feeling like an adult when I realize people think I’m still in high school. It doesn’t happen as much anymore, but on the last cruise I took with my mom, my dinner tablemates seriously thought I was under 18. Sigh.
  • Not liking most “adult-type” food, like wine, sushi, etc. Yeah, I’m just not into that stuff. There are so many different “adult” foods that I just don’t like and it makes me feel like I’m missing some essential Adult gene. Shouldn’t I want to sit down with a glass of wine after a long day? Or have a sushi date with girlfriends? And don’t even get me started on fancy fine-dining restaurants. Gimme a casual steakhouse any day.
  • Not feeling as established as other people my age. Sometimes, it’s really weird to learn that people who seem to be so much more together than me are either younger than me, my age, or only a year or two older. I can give you a ton of examples, and I think that’s partly due to being involved in the blog world. You see all these people and they have these fantastic careers and great relationships and big opportunities and it’s so easy to feel like you’ve fallen behind on this ridiculous timeline. But my timeline is my timeline alone. It’s not supposed to match anyone else’s. (Rinse and repeat!)

What are some ways you feel like an adult, or still feel like a kid?