Alyssa Goes Adulting marks its first year today!

The time has flown by, as it does more and more each passing year.

I was recently alerted that I’ve surpassed 20 posts. I’m not sure why the website alerted me to this, but to me it means I’ve averaged more than 1 blog post per month over the past year, which pleases me.

I’m definitely going to keep the blog going. It’s been a nice creative outlet for my writing versus writing only in a work capacity. I can laugh at myself, I can find like-minded people out there facing the same struggles, and sometimes writing is the most therapeutic way for me to “deal with my shit.”

I am, however, making a few changes moving forward:

— I’m done with the fake names.

It’s a bit silly. The idea at first was just to protect my friends, family and significant other’s identity when they appear in my blog, but let’s be honest. Most people reading this are my friends (because who else gives a f*ck what I’ve got to say?!), so they know who I’m talking about. My reason for protecting people was to save them the embarrassment of any less-than-flattering things I have to say about them, but then I realized — why would I blog about my friends like that, anyway? If it’s not something I feel should be publicly said, I probably shouldn’t be saying it either way, even with a pseudonym. Plus, the idea of referring to my boyfriend, Luke, as “Todd” now just seems really weird, since he hasn’t come up in my posts lately and I took a couple hiatuses. So, that’s done. I’m not going to go back and change the names from the former posts, but from here forward, it’s all legit. Friends — you’ve been warned!

 

— I’d love more feedback.

Please — email me. Comment. Tell me what you want to hear about and what challenges you’re facing in the adulting realm. I want more interaction with this, so don’t hold back!

— I’m ditching the diaries.

It was a fun idea at first, in theory — sharing entries from the diaries of my youth (5th/6th grade through college and beyond). But in practice, it was just kind of depressing and embarrassing, reading about boy after boy after boy (that’s literally ALL I cared about for the most part!) and just seeing how insecure and lost I was, and deeply unhappy because I wasn’t utilizing all the tools available to me today like therapy, meds and good role models. So this will be the only entry about that, at least for now. Maybe I’ll revisit the idea in the future, but I like to think about moving forward versus looking back.

I’m smiling right now because I can feel a difference in myself over the past year. I’m far from having it all figured out (hint: We NEVER really do!), but I think I’ve made some really positive mental strides. And with that comes some slow but sure physical strides as well.

I started to type, “I’d be nothing without my support system, though….” but then I realized, that’s not true. I’d still be me. I want to be enough, at the end of the day.

I think I’m getting there.