Category: Overexposed: A Self-Love Project.

When I started therapy at 24, I thought I was healed. I thought I was going to get all of the answers to my questions about the things I was feeling. After speaking to a couple of social workers and a psychiatrist, I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. With this new diagnosis, I began to analyze everything that could possibly trigger my social anxiety; I was having anxiety about having anxiety.

In the first couple of months of trying different medications and techniques to help ease my social anxiety, I began to feel like I was nothing but my diagnosis. I began to avoid growing because I thought my anxiety was bigger than me at one point. The minor anxiety turned into having full blown anxiety attacks, and places that I didn’t have an issue going to on my own now became too scary to go to now. The things I once enjoyed became a lot to handle, and all I did was cry a lot. For something that was suppose to help me feel better mentally, I felt like I was only getting worse. It was visible to everyone around me and by the time the year was ending, my sibling had expressed to their own therapist they were worried that I was suicidal. I quietly was.

Even after all of that happening in the first couple of months living with my diagnosis, I had no idea how to manage it in the midst of finding who I was and balancing life as a person in their mid 20s.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I wish I knew these things about my social anxiety disorder when I was 24.

• I am not my diagnosis. At 24, I was blaming everything that I did on the fact that I had anxiety, and I didn’t understand why those around me began to feel frustrated with me. I couldn’t understand why the people that loved me would be frustrated at something I had no control over. I remember having conversations with friends that simply would tell me I was now using my anxiety as a crutch. I thought they were being insensitive to my mental health, and I didn’t realize just how much they were right until I began to not introducing myself as “Liz, the girl with an anxiety disorder.” While my anxiety may look different than the next person which the same diagnosis, it does not mean that I am nothing without it. I wish I was aware enough to realize this in the gist of dealing with a new diagnosis; a lot of my younger years wouldn’t have had been wasted trying to find myself with my diagnosis clouding my judgement.

• It’s not impossible to be assertive when you have “people-pleasing” tendencies. A big thing I learned about SAD at 24 was that a lot of it was triggered by pleasing those around me. In my relationship at the time, I wanted to appear as this perfect girl that wanted to be shown to others as “the perfect girl”. Academically, I wanted to show my family that I was best at what I did and be the subject of those “my daughter is pursuing her master’s” talks despite me mentally struggling to keep up with the work and with myself. In the middle of wanting to please those around me, I still was able to notice when people crossed the boundaries I have (even when I was too scared to voice them out to others). With each therapy session I had, I was reminded that I needed to be more assertive with those in my life and in situations where I need to stick up for myself. That involved confrontation, which is the worst option for someone dealing with an anxiety disorder. For awhile, it seemed impossible for me to learn assertiveness while being deemed as a “people-pleaser” (and update to 6 years later: I still struggle with it), but as I’ve grown and had experiences that required me to put it in action, I’ve learned that–like everything else in life–there’s always a balance. Yes, I can be considerate of people’s feelings but still hold them accountable when they use me as a scapegoat for their emotions. Yes, I can still be a good person to people but still be selfish with myself if I feel like I’m being disrespected. Yes, confrontation is inevitable but they will also help you learn life lessons you take with you in decades to come.

• You cannot control other people and their thoughts, situations, and things that have nothing to do with you. A couple of years ago, I had a hard time learning what was truly in my control and what wasn’t. When things would get bad in my life, I constantly felt the need to control the situation so it the outcome wasn’t as unpredictable as I anticipated. A red flag in anxiety disorders. When relationships weren’t as great and healthy as they use were, I tried to preserve as much of it as possible to the part that it hurt me more holding on than to let them go. It got worse when I found other things to try to control during my weight-loss journey. Although it’s not as bad as it once was, I’ve come to terms that there will be some level of control I need in order to ease my anxiety… even if it causes more anxiety. To be quite honest, I still struggle to regulate my need to control things when I’m in stressful or high-anxiety situations. Cue in another red flag in anxiety disorders: impulsive decisions. At 24, I was unable to accept the fact that I couldn’t control how people reacted in situations or how they perceived me, and it truly doesn’t go away until you get older (or until you realize that other people’s thoughts and feelings have nothing to do with you.)

• Be gentle with yourself; it’s never an “end-all” situation. Anxiety will make you feel like you are damned to ever not feel happiness in your life (which is crazy to even deem as true, but I did in my mid 20s). With an anxiety disorder, it is an extremely important to remember to be gentle with yourself. In my 20s, my anxiety constantly made me feel like I was my own worst enemy. I was constantly on this emotional rollercoaster; if I felt happy for too long I always had to question the authenticity of my feelings. I tried to fix everything in my life that I thought was broken even if I was the one that made things worse in the process. For most of my 20s, I had this belief that I was not worthy of being loved because I couldn’t find many reasons to love myself first. My anxiety had made me believe that my mental disorder made me damaged goods. Let’s be real now: mental health almost a decade ago was a topic most people were still scared to talk about due to the stigma behind it. Many of us who had mental issues at the time wasn’t diagnosed until it affected your daily functioning and you were already on a path of self-destruction. I wish when I was at 24 I had a little bit of clarity and understanding on what it meant to deal with a mental disorder and didn’t feed into the belief that having a poor mental health meant you were not capable of feeling or maintaining happiness in my life. I wish at 24, mental health was something that was socially acceptable as it is these days. I’m not saying that mental health is easier to handle these days (sometimes it feels like its the opposite with all the knowledge we have about it now), but it’s definitely something that doesn’t make you feel isolated anymore.

Anxiety in my 30s already feels so different to me than it was in my 20s. Besides having a better understanding and gained a level a self-awareness because of my anxiety, I’ve noticed my conversations shifting to other anxiety-inducing topics that I wasn’t even thinking about in my 20s. These days, I try to view my anxiety as a spicy add-on; while it doesn’t make everything I do hard, it still challenges me to see if I’m going to take on the task or be comfortable and avoiding it. (I’m looking at my partner who made me call for takeout the other night; needlesstosay, I felt good once that phone call was over!)

There’s a ton of things wish I knew about my anxiety when I was younger; sometimes I reflect back and think about all the time I wasted being too engulfed in my anxiety during my 20s. I will probably say this again about my 30s when I finish them in a decade. I don’t dwell on the time lost when I think back; things were meant to happen the way they did and if they didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be where I’m at these days. These have ultimately been the best years of my life because of my experiences, and I wouldn’t trade them in for the world.

You think that everything adults tell you is bogus when you’re a kid and a teenager navigating through life. You roll your eyes during every uncomfortable preach session they give you; telling you that you must do this before doing that and that must happen in order for this to happen and blah, blah, blah. It goes in one ear and out the other. We always think that as kids (more so teens and even young adults) we just know better than adults. I mean, sure, sit’s not always the case where every adult tells you the right thing, but in situations where the adult– i.e. your parents, mentor, therapist, etc.– is giving you advice about life through personal experience… even then we don’t listen to them–

Until we officially become the adults.

I’ve been quite vocal about how different my perspective on life as been since turning 30 earlier this year. I briefly spoke about the idea of a “Saturn’s return”, which occurs roughly between the ages of 27 – 31 when you go through this major transitional stage of your life and figure out… well, life. Sure, we have our 20s to discover ourselves and experience life in ways we weren’t able to as teenagers. In our 20s, we are college students; some living away from home or others commuting to their classes in hope to graduate with their degree in four years. Some of us are working their first 9 to 5 jobs making their first bit of pocket change that is solely ours. Needless to say, our 20s are reserved for uncertainty and experimentation; it’s the time when we’re suppose to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.

But something definitely shifts when you’re nearing your late 20s and gearing for your 30s. I swear, it’s like something chemically changes when you reach a certain age. This is something I’ve witness with a lot of people within my age range; once careless and wild turned into responsible and a civilized human in society. Sure, everyone grows up at one point in life, but I guess it just hits different knowing you’re nearing 30; who knows.

Needless to say, the older we get the more we begin to reflect on the things we were told when we were younger. For me, these moments occur when I find myself being in these same situations I was once told about. I can’t help but shake my head, regretting not listening to this specific advice the first time around.

And now, we are those adults saying the same things to the generations beneath us; they roll their eyes, huff and puff all annoyed that some adult is giving them some unsolicited advice. We tell them that we were just like them at their age, in which they’ll sigh even louder thinking that we don’t have any clue in how they feel or think we’re cringe for even trying to relate to them. We’ve been there; all of us.

I don’t regret not following the advice that I got from adults when I was younger. I think it’s inevitable that we don’t; we simply do not see things in the same lens as we do when we are older, and I think our first reaction to getting advice from someone older is, “I still have time to do what I want about this situation.” Sure, that much is true until you realized that you’re now 30 and reminiscing about the days when you were counting down to finally being 21-years-old.

You too will come to the realization one day that everything they told you about life was pretty spot on, and they were right all along.

One thing they do not tell you about your 30s is that truly, the chemicals in your brain shift.

It may not be in a literal sense, but figuratively it feels like something switches on as soon as you hit 30. Everything looks different to you. Everything feels different to you. You’re left in a place where you don’t really know what to expect or how to adjust because the switch doesn’t give you the time to prepare. It just happens, and when it does, it’s crucial.

In 3 months, I will be 31 years old, which is shocking since it feels like I just turned 30 but at the same time lived so much life being 30. These last 9 months have changed me as a person. It changed how I thought, felt, and even how to regulate those said things.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s been fucking scary.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I am learning that the survival tactics I created for myself no longer work for this version of who I am.

I grew up being an entirely different person than I was when I was younger. I had a fairly normal childhood; I never felt like I had to be older than my actual age or deal with the world in the way other kids may had to. I am the youngest in my family so that deemed me the “baby” of the house. We are deemed the spoiled ones; we got away doing a lot of the things our older siblings didn’t and rarely got blamed for any wrongdoing that we done.

But many of the times our concerns and worries were never addressed or concerned because we were the youngest; parents thought they had the formula of parenting down by the time they have their second or third kid. In many cases, it’s our younger siblings that keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves because they’ve accepted the fact that no one asks them how they were doing.

We involuntarily assign ourselves the role of being the strong one. The one that seems to always be put together socially, personally, and mentally. The one that succeeds in everything that they do without showing any signs of a struggle. The one that always has a smile on their face despite the situation. The one that everyone assumes is so independent, they don’t need to check-in on them.

I don’t know when I assigned myself this role. I think these roles are assigned to people without them even realizing it, to be honest. I didn’t know this was my role until much later in life, when it started to affect me in a way it never did before.

My role simply isn’t indefinite, and the power it holds does not serve me in the way it once did.

“Just because you‘re strong doesn’t mean you have to be strong all the time.” Those are words I’ve said to other strong people who are hurting and thinking it was that easy to shed the role I only know how to be. I understand why hearing that can be frustrating; how do you just unlearn the habits and beliefs you grew up with? How do you tell yourself to not be strong in this moment when that’s all you know what to be when you’re in survival mode?

As I’m writing this, I still don’t know the answer, nor think I’ll know it anytime soon.

I think with everything complicated in life, you learn the answer as you go (and grow) through the experience. I look back and think about the things I once feared of doing due to how much it took me out of my comfort zone. I’ve realized that I had to be uncomfortable in order to find what works for me and how to adjust myself in the future. There’s a lot I’ve done in the past couple of years that made me uncomfortable, but I am where I am because of it.

Half of the challenge is to completely unlearn the beliefs that ultimately shaped you into the person you are today as well. For me, I feel like a lot of things I’ve done and accomplished was because of believing I had to. I had to be nonchalant and pretend what I was going through wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be. In a way, it positively shaped me into who I am today, but as I get older I am realizing that even with the work being done, it is okay to ask for help. Asking for help will not make you any less strong.

It’s okay to say that what worked for me back then may not work for me now.

Moving forward, I have to learn to live my life. I have to learn to be strong for myself the same way that I am strong to others. I have to learn to be gentle with myself the same way I am gentle to others. In a nutshell, I need to say and believe that the love I had for others can also be used for myself. I have to learn a lot about what it means to put myself first even in the situations where we’ve learned that loved ones and family should always take priority in your life. At the end of the day, they are people that have to look out for themselves as well.

I have to learn that it’s okay to let go of survival tactics that do not help me survive anymore, and that doesn’t mean you can’t handle it anymore. It simply means you’re able to survive without needing that tactic anymore.

And that alone makes you even a stronger person than before.

It was just a typical Wednesday morning during the first week of classes. Our office was busier than usual considering the Fall semester had just started a couple of days prior. I had got into this rhythm of getting to the office earlier than everyone else after getting used to working full-time hours. It was a normal Wednesday morning until my boss came in and walked into her office, signed onto her computer, and called my name as soon as she sat down at her desk. I walked into her office and told me that all of the paperwork needed for my full-time position was approved and that I was now officially resigning my College Assistant line as of today.

Hi, my name is Liz, and August 29th, 2023 was the day that ultimately changed my life for the better.

Professionally, I was excited that I accomplished one of my goals before turning 30 just a couple of months later: be hired full-time. It was about time that I did what I needed to do in order to get a full-time position. The only thing that was holding me back was the fact that I really enjoyed the office I was working in, and the college legit was like a second home to me. It was hard to get full-time at a place that wasn’t openly offering it, so when I got the opportunity to have a line created for me in the office, of course I wanted to take it. After 8 months of constant updates and paperwork needing to be filled out, I was finally getting the full-time position I wanted. My first day as an aHEO (Assistant to Higher Education Officer) was literally spent writing my resignation letter as a College Assistant. A year later, and I am now permanently hired as an aHEO. I don’t just have a job anymore; I now have a career.

Being hired full-time in an environment that supported me and fought for me to stay in their office made me feel like I was an important piece of the puzzle in this unit. When I first started my job as a CA, it took me a couple of months to even feel secure enough to do simple tasks without asking dumb questions. Even when I was offered this full-time position at the time, I was nervous to finally carry a role that came with a responsibility that I felt like I wasn’t deserving of. Even now I deal with some level of impostor syndrome because of the higher title, but it has gotten better with experience and with time.

Something changed in me when I got hired full-time though. It was like I gained this level of confidence that I didn’t have before, as well as gain some certainty and security regarding my future. That following night after work, I went out and celebrated with my partner on possibly the most beautiful night of the entire summer. Looking back at that day now, everything else in my life began to come into place, and since then… well, I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

I don’t know where I would’ve been right now if I had not taken the opportunity when it came. I would’ve probably been some COA at some other college, going through all of the steps again just to find my sense in belong. Who knows; I might’ve still been in the same office working part-time, thinking about whether or not I should leave to go find full-time work elsewhere. I think a apart of me believes that once I got this position, I felt like I was able to plan other parts of my life out in a way. This position is secured for life; no matter what I will always have my job unless I decided to leave out of the company altogether. Because I felt secured professionally, I began to view other parts of my life in the same lens. Once I knew that I needed to feel that same level of security with myself as a person, everything else would fall into place.

Of course, not everything is black and white and not everything that I deal with falls in that umbrella of security. There’s always going to be things out of my control. I’m learning that I only have control in the things I know I have control over, like my thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and even the way I problem solve. I’ve wrote a blog post a couple of months ago that I needed to set boundaries with myself in the same sense I would to people that were toxic for my well-being; that still reigns true as I get older and discover that there are beliefs and actions I have to unlearn as a adult in society. Not everything is going to look like how it did for us in the way it did when our parents were growing up, and not everything is going to be concrete and solvable when you want them to be.

In a sense, I’ve learned a lot about how time works. I’ve learned that while yes, you shouldn’t wait for things to come to you if you really want them, I’ve learned that they will come to you as time passes without you even knowing. A lot of the things I’ve wanted to happen have happen not only because I’ve remain persistent in obtaining them, but I also allowed time to help me grow as a person and to mature in ways in order to handle the things I wanted out of life.

I’ve waited nearly a year to be permanently hired in this position, and God knows where it will take me this time next year. This time last year, I had no idea how to be a person in my position and felt completely unworthy of it when there were other people in the office that worked there even when I was a student myself. I had no idea where this position would take me or how it would differ to what I was doing as a CA, but I’ve allowed time to help me grow into it, and feel that sense of belonging that… well… I guess I always am looking for in life.

I don’t know where the rest of my career is heading, but I am excited to see what the future has in store for me. Now that I am hired permanently in my position, I now have some things that I can start focusing on, like potentially returning to school to get my doctorate degree.

Happy anniversary to the day that change my life for the better; here’s to many more.

Dear Summer 2024,

As always, you teach us just how fast time can pass. It feels like it was just yesterday we were putting our light jackets and sweaters in our closets and taking out our swimsuits for the season. It feels like it was just yesterday we were telling our students and faculty to have a great summer. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was planning and looking forward to all of the things I had planned for the season. But just like time, it finally came, we experienced it, and now it’s a memory.

For me, I started off my summer checking another K-pop group off of my list to see live in concert. For context, I was actually really nervous at first to go to a TXT (Tomorrow X Together) concert considering that they are one of the more popular K-pop groups in the industry, and K-pop stans can really be intense. Needless to say, I was really excited to see these guys live, and they did not disappoint! Sure, the K-pop industry is currently saturated with different groups as the genre becomes more westernized, but there are a select few that really know how to put on a performance; TXT being one of those at the top of that list! It was also the first concert I went to that I nearly lost my voice at, which wasn’t surprising at all.

I spent my afternoons this summer going out to eat and getting drinks; particularly to celebrate the accomplishments and blessings that were coming our way. This summer, I finally got my notary license after passing the test earlier this year, and I was now further getting into the process of being hired permanently at my job, and my partner released his first ever music video to one of his original tracks! In hindsight, I saw just how different celebrations are in your 30s. For me, celebrations in my 20s were always clouded by this self-hatred and doubt I had for myself because I never felt I was deserving enough to have the things I actually worked hard for. Maturing made me realize that time simply passes by too fast to not celebrate these accomplishments, no matter how small they may be to everyone else. Yes, I’m going to celebrate the fact that I aced this second job interview after nearly stressing out about it for two weeks straight. Yes, I’m going to celebrate the fact that I got my Notary license after studying non-stop for a month straight, thinking I failed. Yes, I am also to celebrate the people around me and their accomplishments, because everyone deserves to be recognized for them as they also worked hard to achieve them.

Summer 2024 was also the first time I was able to go on a summer vacation! My partner and I went away to Atlantic City in July; it was my first time ever going to the place that nearly every person within the five boroughs has gone to. Despite me getting sick during our vacation, I had such a good time walking the boardwalk, going to the casino to win a little bit of money, getting drinks in The Quarter, and going to the outlets where we shopped ’til we dropped. It was a well needed vacation after months of working and nearly burning out because of it. I came back refreshed and recharged, ready to tackle the Fall semester that was to come.

One thing about the trip that stood out to me the most was when we were in our hotel room, relaxing after having dinner one night. We were watching all the 90s/00s sitcoms; this particular hour they played Girlfriends. Tracee Ellis Ross’ character, Joan, was experiencing a huge shift in her life; she had left her current job and broke up with her serious long-term boyfriend. She chats with her younger co-worker, who is very serious about her hot-dog food court job, about having set up these expectations for herself that nearly make up her identity. She sits her down and tells her, “Trust me, you don’t want to be 32 and never stopped to smell the roses.” Both my partner and I looked at the TV and said “Whoa”. It was real. It made me realize that this summer was truly about enjoying the simple things in life and learning how to slow down, even when time doesn’t.

This summer not only marked my one-year anniversary being in this full-time position, but it also was the marking of actually being hired permanently into it! For the last year, I was on a temporary line of the position, awaiting for HR to put together the listing for that I could officially apply for the position. After months of resume building and various job interviews that caused an acne breakout throughout the entirety of June, I was given the official news that I was being hired officially in my position! This upcoming academic year will be the first in where I am completely working in this role, so I’m a little nervous about the transition. Nevertheless, I am excited to finally be secure professionally; now it’s time to cross some other things off of my bucket list.

It was great while it lasted, Summer 2024; thank you for the memories and for allowing me to see just how important it was to enjoy the summer; both celebrating the accomplishments I worked hard for and taking some time to slow down and simply live.

Until next summer.

Picture this: It’s January 8th, 2024 around 11pm-ish living your last half hour in your 20’s. You reminisce about the last decade; every milestone you hit, every heartbreak you experienced, every defining moment that makes up your identity. I was very local about my 20s specifically; most of it has been documented in almost 1,000 blog posts in the course of 7 years. So now it finally hits midnight; it’s January 9th, 2024, which now makes you 30 years old. You take a deep breath in and turn off your bedroom light for the night: welcome to another year of life, and the first of your fuckin’ 30s.

Fast forward and it’s now June 27th, 2024 (hypothetically speaking if you know my blog posting habits) and you let out that same deep breath. Only this time, it’s followed by a, “goddamn, it’s already gonna be July?!”

Hi, my name is Liz, this is my mid-year self-aware check-up post as we are nearing the middle of the fucking 2024 year. That’s crazy, y’all.

I started off the year going to California to celebrate my 30th birthday. I was so excited to scratch of another place off of my bucket list to travel to. It was the first time on a flight across the country, landing in a different time-zone than my own back in NYC. That particular trip kickstarted is whole want to travel more and see different places. Of course there was no place like home, but I also knew when it was time to get out of the city and go to a different one. This summer, I’m planning on taking another trip! This time, it will be some place along the east coast; something local. As the time I am typing this, nothing is set in stone yet, but of course once everything comes together, pictures will be taken and a travel diary will be written for the blog!

In February, my sibling and I went to go see Chicago on Broadway, of course when Ariana Madix was Roxie Hart! I’m a big Vanderpump Rules fan and Ariana has been a fan favorite since the beginning of her run on the show. She was amazing, so amazing that she even got called back to do the show again in August. Needless to say, this was our first Broadway show in about 17 years; it was a nice change from the loud concerts I attended last year… although I’m literally going to a concert within weeks of me writing this.

Speaking of going out, I (successfully, kinda) went to another party! Back in April, I was invited to Obie’s “Back to the 90’s” party, and I (successfully) did not have an anxiety attack. Of course, whenever I go into these type of settings, I am constantly judging myself and thinking about ways to improve in the future… that’s where the ‘kinda’ part comes in. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve come a long way since being 22-years-old nearly crying my eyes out of its sockets after being at a birthday party with no coping mechanisms whatsoever. I simply now have goals when going into any social gathering, which is just being myself as much as possible.

I’ve learned that I don’t need to get up and dance with a random stranger just to have a good time; instead, I can sit in my seat and dance along to the music and fill up my social cup with just that. I don’t need to mingle and make myself socially available in a party if I know that my battery quickly drains. I’ve learned a lot about myself just by going out and being around more people these days, and I think with more practice and using better techniques to get through a social setting, I will be able to actually walk out of a party having had a good time. I don’t want to have to think my every move; parties are meant to be fun, not work. But again, I am proud of how far I’ve come, as past versions of myself would have not gone out of her way to do. These days, I tag along to studio sessions and witness music tracks being made. These days, I walk around the Downtown neighborhood and stop at a happy hour after a long day at work. I feel like I am embracing my social life more than I ever did in my 20s, whihc isn’t too far off from my “late bloomer” brand.

On top of everything that I’m doing in my social life, I am also working towards growing as a professional. Late last year, I decided that I wanted to go back to school to pursue getting my doctorate degree once I settled into my current position at my job. While that is more of a long term goal, one of my short term goals was to take the Notary Public Exam and pass it to get my license. I spent most of March and April solely studying for this exam, and ya girl passed! It was a nice add-on to my ongoing quest of becoming a more well-rounded professional in the field I work in. It was nice to know that my workplace has supported me through the various processes in my professional development. Having set goals like growing professionally allows me to focus my energy and my task-driven brain towards something that will benefit me in the long-run. No more of the day that I would think mindlessly without any real reasoning behind it.

Mentally, I’ve been pretty good this year (so far). Of course, I am naturally dealing with things that just come with my age: needing more independence on the things that I don’t already have, unlearning some of the behaviors and beliefs that we as children were embedded to think and believe, and in a general sense of what my 3rd decade of my life looks like. I already feel like it’s drastically different than my 20s, and I am hoping that I continue to better myself in different aspects of it: socially, professionally, liz-ally.

Some things I am looking forward to as I write this: my first concert of 2024! By the time this is posted, I would have gone, but I am going to see Tomorrow X Together (TXT) in the city this June! Of course, I am nervous to attend such a huge K-pop concert like theirs, but I am more than excited to cross another artist off of the list I am looking to see live in concert. Some concerts I’ve gone to in the past include Kelly Clarkson, Pentatonix, ITZY, Demi Lovato, NMIXX, Jonas Brothers, and Woodz; a nice little list of people, might I add. I’m also going to take the well-needed PTO and go on vacation this summer. I’m hoping all of our plans go as planned, but needless to say I am just excited to do something during the summer since I haven’t done anything super Summer vacation-like in God knows how long. All I know is that I want to be in someone’s bar with a drink in hand and sunglasses on.

And I think that’s it! I guess check back in December (Twelve Letters of Lizmas, even?) to see how the latter part of the year went! Haha!

Until then!