New Year, New City

Because people really seemed to enjoy my Spain blog, I decided to start another one, only this time focusing on life post-graduating from college. This blog should be interesting considering my life is about to change. Not only did I recently graduate from KU, but I am moving to New York City to pursue new experiences. Actually, as we speak (or as I write, lol) I am on Midwest Flight 1584 to New York City, LGA (A 3-hour flight, what a perfect opportunity to write my first blog post). I am feeling so many emotions right now with the most prominent being sadness and excitement. On one hand I am very sad to move away from my family and on the other hand I am anxious to find out what New York has in store for me. Almost everyone who knows me knows how close my family is. My parents are my heroes, my sisters are my best friends, my brother-in-laws are literally the big brothers I never had, and my niece and nephew are the light in my life and the constant smile on my face, so you can imagine leaving them all behind is difficult. Most 22-year-olds spend their weekends out with their friends partying and while I do enjoy doing that from time to time, I spend most of my weekends hanging out with my family. Whether or not it’s going out to dinner, going to see a movie, doing a little gambling at the casino, or simply staying in and ordering Chinese food and playing games, we have so much fun together. Although many of our good times come from everyone making fun of me for the silly things I say/do, there isn’t a week that goes by that we don’t have great hearty laughs!

All this being said, you can imagine how much I love my family and moving away from them is no doubt difficult, but it’s something I am doing for me and I know they all understand and support me 100%. Plus, in the wise words of my oldest sister Kim, with modern day technology, it won’t even seem like we are miles apart. She is of course referring to the fact that we will have Skype dates (for those of you living under a rock, Skype is a way to chat with people via computer web cams). Skype is no doubt how I will survive living away from home. I plan on talking to my entire family at least once a week and I of course will track the growth of my niece and nephew (as well as my unborn niece or nephew, aka, Kim’s belly). Saying goodbye to Jaxson and Audrina last night was the first time I lost it and the tears came a rollin down. They are both so young and didn’t understand the fact that this goodbye was different than any other goodbye, but I’m confident that talking through Skype will allow them to get their “Aunt Wesa” fix and hopefully they never forget who I am (I know Drea and George would never let this happen).

So perhaps you are asking yourselves, if I am so close to my family why did I decide to move? It’s simple...I am young, single and free. I didn’t have anything keeping me in Kansas City and I realize that if I don’t try new things now while I can, I probably never will. I know that when I get a bit older, fall in love and settle down to raise a family, I will no doubt want to be near my family in Kansas, so now is really the only opportunity I have to be spontaneous and live wherever I want to live. Obviously choosing New York was a no brainer; I have visited 3 times and enjoyed it a little bit more each time and I have an uncle who lives here who is so graciously allowing me to stay with him. Plus, it’s New York City for goodness sake. What young person looking for new and exciting adventures wouldn’t want to live here!? Like my Tio Marty (who I’m living with) said…Everyone should live in the city at least once for a little while, you learn so much! I’m taking his advice, let the learning begin! :)

All tears have been wiped away (I’m not going to lie and pretend I made it through this entire post without shedding any tears) and the oh-so-famous fresh baked-on-board Midwest cookies have just arrived so it’s time for me to wrap up. Here is to the first of many posts!! :)