How I became a Hufflepuff

When my parents were moving out of my childhood home last year, I went down for a few weekends to help them clean, as well as take apart my old room. Posters and important papers I had kept were tacked on my wall amid all the lettering and painting I had done as a child (much to my parents chagrin). If you’ve ever been in my room, one thing you will find along every wall in various forms of sharpie and paint, was my name. “Kelly” or “Kelly was here” labeled my closet, the trimming of my windows, the areas behind my desk and dresser. I was tucked in almost every corner of that room.

As I found all these declarations I started to wonder why I felt the need to write such a phrase over and over. I remembered the emotions behind wanting to put my name on everything I touched, but not the reasoning. I mused this out loud to my mother and her answer startled me. “You were trying to find your identity.” she said.

This, in a sense, blew my mind. It didn’t occur to me that writing my name over and over in different mediums and styles could be a symptom of my mind trying to work out who I was. Considering all the coming-of-age movies and books I had read, I thought, or at least assumed, that discovering what you’re all about as a person would come after some weird hardship or a super crazy house party. It didn’t come from the loneliness of a small, quiet room.

Even as I write this, I don’t think I have my identity pinned down, at least enough to talk about it in a blog post. And I certainly don’t have any film-worthy stories about discovering my identity and hopes and dreams and desires in high school while also getting the girl. But I can pinpoint a few times in my life where I realized what I believed and what I felt I stood for and all those instances combined have slowly helped me figure out me.

One instance I remember in particular was when I realized I belonged in Hufflepuff house. This was back when I was a sophomore in high school (about 8 years ago) before Pottermore, when sorting was something you and your friends did at lunch or at sleepovers. I knew a lot of people who put themselves in Gryffindor because it’s Harry’s house or it’s seemingly the best, but that reasoning didn’t sit right with me. I wanted to belong to a house, to feel like I had found my people. One day before band practice, I was listening to a Wizard Rock song about Hufflepuffs and it suddenly dawned on me that everything Hufflepuff house stood for, was what I stood for. Hard work, loyalty, trust, friendship – this was what I wanted people to think of when they thought of me. And so many people underestimated them, that I felt a kinship immediately and wanted people to know it. That was a moment where something in me clicked and it instantly felt right (and continues to feel right).

Another moment of identity crisis was during my senior year of college. My friends and I were hanging out and had heard about a test called The Five Languages of Love. The test basically tells you how you communicate love to others and how you best like love to be communicated to you. I never really considered myself a touchy-feely person, but my results stated that the way I communicate love the most is by touch. And almost immediately, I realized how true that was and is. I began noticing that during conversations when I agreed with someone or felt connected to them, I would reach out and touch them. I also realized what separated my acquaintances from my actual friends was how comfortable I felt touching them or they felt touching me. Of course not all my friends are touchy-feely people, but it helped to know that my primary form of communication was physical. It was a revelation to realize how my actions were an extension of who I was and am as a person.

I could on, especially about the numerous Buzzfeed quizzes I have taken over the years that have helped to define me as a person, but I think the real point here is that our identity is not something that is cast from birth and made to be still and permanent. We are not marble nor glass. We are clay, molded by ourselves and those around us. We are flexible and pliable and we can make weird shapes with ourselves.  Perhaps my endless quest to discover who I am is just a reflection of my self-obsessed nature. But outside influence can be harmful if not properly filtered. And the more I know me, the more I become me. And that’s all that really matters.

AUSTRALIA and TRADITION…tradition…

So as our mother mentioned on FaceBook a few days ago, our parents, the people who raised us, are moving halfway around the world to Australia. This is something both Sara and I support (if anyone gets to visit them, it’s their children) but it has been stressful. And that stress is mainly because we have an entire house that now needs to be emptied of everything but essentials.

Because of this, I recently had to take apart my childhood bedroom. Luckily I had done a major clean about two years prior, so it wasn’t quite the overwhelming shit-storm it could have been. Instead it was a relatively quiet few days where I striped my walls of posters and newspaper clippings and scrubbed off all the old paint. It was cathartic, it was slightly embarrassing, and it was also pretty fun. I like starting over and taking a part my room felt like starting over.

Everything in it’s rightful place!

But it made me think a lot about tradition and what I find important in my life. When I was growing up my parents didn’t stake a lot in tradition. We had routines sure, but beyond hosting Christmas and going to the same summer camp every year, there weren’t any activities or family heirlooms that spoke of “THE GREAT DANVER FAMILY HISTORY” (even typing that felt pretentious).

It’s like 2002 threw up in here and then everything just festered and grew….

The only reason why this is important enough to think about is that we are now losing a lot of our stuff, a lot of our “traditions” and “heirlooms,” because of this move. I suddenly had to think about what art and books and furniture I would want to have in the future, if I wanted any of my parents stuff. And if I didn’t want any of it, it would be donated or simply thrown away.

It’s naked don’t look!

This is a very weird thing! I’m having a hard time envisioning my future right now for a number of different reasons, but on top of this, I had to decide if there was something I might want for a house of my own someday. Sure we aren’t a very tradition-oriented family, but my parents instilled in me a fondness and a sense of history for many of our possessions. These were things I saw everyday I grew up. They’re very important to me because of the memories they carry.

13 year old me did not anticipate this amount of cleaning…

I guess the reason I am having trouble with this move is because, I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting this. Yes I knew I would have to take apart my room at some point and that inevitably my parents would downsize to a smaller place. I didn’t really think I would have my house in its current state forever. But I think there’s a difference between downsizing and a complete shedding of your previous life. My home base is no longer my home base. And another family will be walking through those halls.

So what makes a home base? Is it your family? Is it the routine you establish there? Is it a combination of all your most prized possessions and people? I honestly don’t really know. A year into living on my own, I’ve had this idea in the back of my head that if I failed or if something didn’t work out I could just go home to Alexandria and start a new life. But this isn’t really an option for me anymore. Hoboken has, essentially, become my home base now.

This isn’t something I am SUPER EXCITED about nor is it filling me with dread. Honestly, it’s just another part of growing up. As an individual, my home can be wherever I want it to be. I’m excited about the possibility of creating new homes with parts of my old ones. I’m excited to get back to the essentials of my life, to know exactly what I need and what I don’t. And I’m excited to change. I think I used to be scared of change a lot more than I am now. And though I might not have traditions or heirlooms that speak of generations upon generations of greatness, I’ve got the greatest collection of people I know doing amazing things with their lives; things they are willing to share with me. And that’s worth more than most things…probably anything.

Kelly And Maslow

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I moved to Hoboken without a “real job.” This means that my income was based on minimum wage and that I was living mostly on savings. My initial goal was to get a job as soon as possible, but I also didn’t want to be stuck in a career or job that didn’t suit me since that’s why I left the district in the first place.

Since I had some room to be picky, I didn’t feel compelled to accept a job I really didn’t like, but to get some practice in and to widen my search net I signed up with a temp agency right when I moved. This means that I’ve been on a lot of job interviews. During the fall I went to about 20 interviews in two and a half months. And now that my publishing internships have finished and the industry is in a hiring flurry, I’ve gone on even more, sometimes as many as five in a week. Ask me if I got any of those jobs and I’ll give you a really bitter and sarcastic answer.

These interviews I went to were all entry level positions, mostly administrative, and the companies ranged from law firms, to hedge funds, to placing agencies. And what this inevitably means is that I got asked the same questions about my experience and my goals over and over. And out of every question asked, the one that I cannot stand the most is, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

The reason this question makes me want to scream is because I really honestly have no idea where I want to be in five years. And I guess I could talk about how I can’t even plan for next week, let alone a year or five years from now so why should it matter. But I don’t think that’s true. I know how I want my life to look like…or at least I know how I want to feel about it.

I’ve tried to figure out why I haven’t really thought about planning for my future. Is it because I don’t have the means to visualize a future at all? Abraham Maslow, a famous psychologist, developed this theory about the hierarchy of human needs – basically if humans cannot satisfy their lower needs like health, safety, and food, then they cannot reach self-actualization. So maybe I can’t visualize a future because I cannot satisfy my more basic needs like financial security.

Not as good as the food pyramid…but we’ll make due.

Do I agree with this theory? Yes and no. Like most other psychological theories it applies until it doesn’t. But it does make me think about why I haven’t been able to see past getting a job to a career or a life that’s greater or more personal. I feel as though I missed this past year because my focus has been solely on finding a way to support myself – by myself – so that I may find what else motivates me to become a “self-actualized” human.

When I hear the term “career” or “job” nothing very specific comes to mind. I just think about how I desire a job or a career that’s fulfilling, that I believe helps make the world a better place in some way and that my contribution means something. But ultimately I think that my job is a means to very different end.

What I’ve come to realize is that all of my goals have been more life-oriented. Such as, I want to live in as many cities as I can or at least out on the west coast someday. I want to live abroad again. I want to meet many interesting people and maintain the friends that I love. I want to write a book and a movie and I want to see them get made (arguably that’s kind of a career goal but since that’s all less likely to happen and it’s not really an industry per se I am putting it into the life category).

I think this why I am drawn to careers where I can be independent, where I can set my own hours, where I can essentially be my own boss, because I am afraid if I get stuck somewhere in a career or a job then I might not be able to accomplish any of those life goals, which are so much more important to me than any sort of career aspect of my life. But I also know that the majority of my time will be spent at my job and I want to love it and to believe in it and to find satisfaction in it.

Right now I don’t know what that satisfaction looks like. It’s not really something I can put into words. I think I have found a good industry; there is nothing I would rather promote, sell, or associate myself with more than books. But my desires, my needs, and the actions that drive me forward are deeper and more abstract than anything a 9 to 5 job could provide.

So I continue the search, both on job boards and within myself. If I am being honest, college freshman Kelly would never have thought she would be where she is today. But I think she’d be pretty impressed with what I have accomplished so far.

Today we’re going to try something new

She had ideas but no patience to fill them, to see them from beginning to the end. She thought about lines, how they go from one end to the other. They had no concept of stopping of diverting course. She wondered what it would take, to make her focus, to make her see, to fully break her with such an emotion that she has never felt. She wanted it badly, sought it at every corner of the universe, of the Internet, of her mind – no, that was a lie. Even the search for truth couldn’t hold her. She felt as though she has been in the ocean too long, the buoyancy no longer welcome but a hindrance to progress and purposeful motion. She wanted to walk, to walk forever, with no worries about getting back. Her footprints would be in the sand or on a sidewalk soaked with rain, her arch carved out and each toe a tiny circle. She didn’t feel real without a sense of touch. She wanted to communicate with every molecule on earth, and would not be satisfied until every force was fully absorbed. She wanted each pore in her skin to seep and ooze with experience and sweat and blood. She wanted violence, a sharp knife drawing beautiful scars all over her body, making it art, making it a symbol; of her life, her mind, her desires. She wanted to stand naked and content before everyone as she walked down the street, giving her body to the world knowing that they didn’t own it, could never own it, not fully, only down to a certain point. She thought how little people screamed and how wonderful it was to rip open our vocal cords to release the energy we build up just by being human. She was afraid of that deep cavern in her chest and heart; it was as vast and as dark as the universe and much less explored. She thought we all have this in us, we all feel it and shouldn’t we explore it together, perhaps even hold hands? She missed those who had abandoned the search and the adventure. They were gone and she wished them well and knew it was selfish to crave their return. She thought about the questions that would always remain unanswered. She wondered how long she would have to stay here, suspended in time. She thought she could last forever, but she was tired and beaten and wanted a smoke. Who cares? she thought. You do. The clock on the wall was ticking, still ticking and would tick until the batteries died. She wanted it to tick until her batteries died too. She wanted that clock to tick for centuries after her death as a tribute to the seconds she never used. Those seconds would build greater and better things and between them, between each tick, was all the knowledge of the universe. She thought about her patience. It made her want to bury herself in all the second the universe had to hold, to take them as she pleased or at least borrow what she could. But time is not spread before us to pick and choose. We are handed one moment at a time. We take those seconds for granted, filling our glasses to the brim until it all tumbles over. She thought about the great things those seconds would become and how they were going to make something no one can ignore, but ignore it they will. She thought about the seconds she had discarded, or swept away. She thought about vibration, about skin on skin. She thought about what was contained in her body and if it was as beautiful as people said. She wondered when she was leaving and how far she would have to go. She wanted to go very, very far.

So You’ve Just Graduated College…

Get a job.

That’s the next step in growing up, right? Go to school, get a job. It’s almost a promise isn’t it? If you go to school, you will get a job, society says. Lies.

I’m kidding of course. Going to school is a very good way to get a job. Most of the people I know who are relatively successful and well paid went to school. So I went to college and a good one at that. But those who know me know I like to make things harder for myself so instead of the coveted STEM majors I chose the dreaded liberal arts and submitted myself to the alter of all the starving artists who had come before me.

By the time I graduated from college I had heard and seen enough to know that the job market was a very scary place that ate liberal arts majors for breakfast. “I can prepare myself for that,” I thought – and that was true. I started to think about what I wanted my life to look like after college. I knew I didn’t want to stick around the DC area for much longer as I had lived there my whole life. So when an opportunity to move to NYC opened up right after I graduated, I took it, thinking if anything New York was big enough that I could at least get a receptionist job. I put on my adventurer hat and moved September of 2014, ready and willing to fight for a place in such an iconic city.

my diploma

I want to stress that I knew what I was getting into. Moving to a new place and job searching are difficult things to do on their own and I was doing both at the same time. Navigating a new city, away from my home right out of college is not for the faint hearted. But I also felt like I had a lot going for me. My resume was professional and my cover letters were relatively sharp. I had internships during college, great admin skills, a bachelor’s degree, and the cutest smile the east coast has ever seen. By the end of the year, I thought, that’s when I’ll have something. Of course, that didn’t happen.

The thing about job searching is that, it’s not the rejections that kill you. I want to be rejected. But the way that job searching works now is that we only hear from employers if they are interested in meeting with you. Other than that, radio silence. Sometimes we aren’t even notified if our applications are even received. And after weeks and then months of sending in applications that I worked really, really hard on, for jobs that I had naively gotten attached too was heartbreaking. I would see jobs I wanted to apply for that would then disappear the next day when I was ready to send in my paperwork. Eventually I stopped caring about the type of job I wanted and just applied for anything, as I was quickly running out of financial support. It got to the point where I would dread applying because I knew nothing would come of it.

For a little while there, I felt helpless and stupid and like a complete failure. It was a vicious cycle that combined an odd mixture of self-hatred and righteous martyrdom. In these few months, I slept maybe six hours a night and slugged my way through the day. I didn’t feel like I had a purpose and I would lie awake at night wondering how I was going to get through the next day.

But every time I felt too low to do anything, I thought about how much I wanted to be here, in New York, and how much I wanted to move and to try something new and to live a life that was different than the one I had lived before. And I was doing that, despite not having a job or a plan beyond getting a job. I moved somewhere by myself and I was going to make it work or die trying (hyperbole mom, don’t worry). I wanted this and if I was going to let this defeat me than frankly I didn’t deserve to have this opportunity in the first place.

So I changed the way I search for jobs and how I wrote my cover letters. I took sometime for myself, despite feeling guilty about occasionally spending money. And I really came to accept that if for some reason living and working in NYC didn’t work out and I would have to come home, then that wouldn’t be terrible and I wouldn’t be a failure because of it. I would be a person who tried something new and a better person for it.

And eventually I did get an offer, as so many people told me I would. I felt validated, I felt wanted. But more than anything, it was good to know I wasn’t crazy. “I can do this,” I finally thought.

Of course, I turned down that job in favor of an unpaid internship I was more interested in. You would think after all those months of hardship, I would’ve learned to take what’s handed to me. Unfortunately, I’ve never been very good at that either.

What Happens to Sleepy Minds

When I first came to Sara and said we should start a blog, the name “What Keeps Us Awake At Night,” was already preformed in my head. It, like most of my ideas, was formed during a moment of sleepiness that refused to become an actual REM cycle (I know…my ideas are appropriate and timely!). I guess there is just something about lying alone in a dark room in the small hours of the night with nothing but your own thoughts that make us all go a little nuts.

Now my sleep problems are not as pronounced as my sister’s. Sleeping has never really been an issue for me, even growing up. One time during my sophomore year of high school, my grandmother decided to pay for our whole family to go on a cruise. I was in a room with my cousin and my sister. We were all chatting one night in our respective beds and one of them asked me a question. I answered it and my cousin immediately followed up with a different question. Only this time I didn’t answer. Because in the space of time between answering the first question and getting asked the second, I was fast asleep.

I can sleep in tents, on the ground, sober, inebriated, hot, cold…as long as I have a decent pillow, I can pretty much sleep anywhere. On average when I am happy and sober, I would say it probably takes me about half an hour to fall asleep. I say “happy and sober” because things like drinking, smoking, and depression all effect my sleep cycle…but luckily it just makes it easier to pass out. True sleeplessness is a rare thing for me to experience.

So if I have no problems sleeping, you ask, why am I writing this blog? Well putting metaphors aside, being good at falling asleep doesn’t mean that the paralyzing fear of failure or the lure of a newly conjured novel idea doesn’t stop my sleep from happening. Nor does it put an end to the 100 miles per hour pace my mind is usually clocking at. Whether I am sleeping, or doing any other task, I am usually thinking about six different things at once and without releasing some of them into the wild, I’m afraid important ideas or thoughts will be lost.

To try and salvage them, we turned to wordpress and Sara and I decided that we should make sure that if we can’t sleep or organize our thoughts, NO ONE CAN. On this blog we will be discussing some of our favorite late night topics that have single-handedly contributed to the enormous bags under our eyes. We will be discussing topic we hate, topics we love, topics we really have no clue what they are. And maybe even a little creative writing on the side.

Sleeping, overall, is one of my most and least favorite activates. If we as humans didn’t have to sleep think of all the amazing projects that could not only be completed – but also thought of in the first place! I think everyone would be more actualized. But even despite this, there is nothing better (and I truly mean nothing) then crawling into your bed after a very long day and just shutting out the world.

So join us as we take a walk through our sleep-deprived brains as we try to figure out just what was so great about the Pitch Perfect Soundtrack that it kept me awake FOREVER (answer: cause it’s made of magic and unicorns.)