I'm hungover. More hungover than I wish I was. Mostly because I'm one of those people that, when hungover, are inconsolable. Not that I haven't done my research. I've definitely read all those articles that tell me that, when hungover, I can just eat some eggs (they have some enzyme that makes you feel better or your hangover go away faster or something) or drink some coconut water and my life will feel better. These are mostly lies, except the coconut water at least makes me feel less like dying, but only because I can pretend that I'm living in Brazil again.
Anyway. Being hungover has reminded me that even though I'm 27 and probably have a lot more mistakes to make ("Totally not too old to have a one-night stand!" yelled my friend at a bar last night. Uh, thank you? I'm honored? Lots of question marks there.), I keep thinking about when I was little.
When I was little, I would get really bored and run around and make my mom nuts by following her around and asking questions she didn't care about while she was running two restaurants. After the typical parent brush offs-- "Don't you have homework to do?" (Mom, I'm seven. The pinnacle of me having a successful day is making sure I don't have to sit next to the kid who eats glue during art section.), "Why don't you go find your sister?" (Mom, she's been avoiding me and my annoying ass since she's turned thirteen. Do you really think she's going to want to have a long chat with me about why Disney's Fantasia is so scary while Little Mermaid is awesome?) and "Why don't you go read a book or something?" (No. Just no. Bothering you is way more fun) she would default to the typical Tiger Mom response of "Why don't you go sit and think about how you can be better?". Talk about a wide open question. Although this memory explains a lot of my neuroses and also why I will need extensive therapy after my real mid-life crisis, it also explains why I'm constantly critical of who I am and what I do. Not to veer into a "woe is me" or "I'm super egotistical" vein here, because this is actually something I kind of enjoy doing. Could I be kinder? More understanding? Could I be a better friend? A better confidant? A better sister? Daughter? Girlfriend? How about something small-- could I stop throwing my socks into the corner and just put them in the hamper where they belong? Hard to say on that one. I want my socks to be free.
After a particularly hard week at work, I wonder if we can't all benefit from a little more self-analysis. Spend a little time just to think about how we can be nicer to each other. At the end of the day, it's one of the only things I can change. As I think ahead into my final (second-- final sounds so ultimate, so bleak. Let's be real it was a two year program, so let's not get crazy here) year of business school, I realize that a lot of things that I've taken for granted are about to end. A year from now, I could be living in a different city, a different state, I'll definitely be working in a different company, and I won't be able to make 27-year-old mistakes because I'll be busy making 28-year-old mistakes. But I don't want to take that time for granted, because I think that I've been doing a lot of that lately. So, for my second year, I think I'll focus more on being with the people that I love-- at school, at work, or just my outside friends from life in general. To spend time with them, and enjoy their company because it might be the last time we see each other for a long while. I mean, this is really my last time to make life changing decisions with them, right? (Typical b-school conversation, for example, is "Oh...you're going to get a visa to move to Poland and start a new company? Oh. How does your wife in Chicago feel about that? And the kids?"). I wish I could warn all the people, especially all my Chicagoans, how much I'm going to bother them in the coming year, but I figure it's okay. I've always been bad at reminding people about stuff anyway. It'll be a surprise.
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