Love the Life you Live

Only 192 days until my baby brother turns 21. I cannot believe how fast time flies. When I was younger, instead of playing with dolls or watching Rugrats, I would spend my time using my Easy Bake Oven and helping my mom mop the floors or beg my dad to let me iron his work shirts. Needless to say I was in a hurry to grow up. I was born a month early and my parents say that I have been on the fast track ever since.  I remember having a conversation with my father, when I was about 12, telling him that I could not wait until I was 25, married with kids and had my own life. I thought that day would never come and at the young age of 12 it seemed so far away. So as I pouted to my father about wanting to grow up faster he assured me that day would come soon enough and then I would be pouting to him again that I wish I could go back in time and be young again! Since I am stubborn, hard headed and hardly ever wrong, I will not admit that my father's predictions are at all correct but I will say that it sure did go by fast! Now that my brother is going to be an 'adult,' it really makes me feel old! I still look at him as though he is my little baby brother in which I would dress up and style his hair in bow barrettes as he sat in his crib patiently waiting for the torture to be over. Now this little boy has all of a sudden grown out of his crib and up to the bar!!

Most 20 year olds look forward to their 21st birthday so that they can go out with all of their friends, get a giant Margherita, and end up with their head in a toilet bowl later. If only you knew my brother because this is the last thing on earth that he would want to be participating in on his 21st birthday. When I asked him what he wanted to do his reply was just simply to see his girlfriend. And honestly, he would be completely content with just spending the day doing just that. I am not sure I have ever run into anyone else that could say they just wanted to hang out with their girlfriend on their 21st birthday but that is why my brother is so great! I admire his ability to just enjoy the simple things in life! Cole doesn't need designer clothes, in fact he doesn't even care what he wears as long as the tag doesn't itch his skin. He doesn't care nor judge anyone based on their appearance, he still has a velcro wallet in which he doesn't care if it impresses his girlfriend or not. His ideal day would involve waking up to chocolate chip pancakes, having the basement big screen t.v. to himself all day long to watch Cartoon Network or beat another board on Call of Duty Black Ops and then have someone bring him pizza whenever his stomach feels the need to eat again. I wish that while my parents reproduced that they had given me this gene! I wonder if we were programmed with the ability or inability to enjoy simplicity or if it's our environment that makes us this way? Cole is in a position that he could certainly enjoy the finer things in life but that's not what would make him happy. Give him a kind, loving girlfriend, a roof over his head, a car that has four wheels and a t.v. big enough for him to play my dad in Gears of War and he would be completely content!

Imagine what life would be like if there were more people with my brothers mentality? If the only importance in life was the people in our life instead of the things in our life? If we could all find the goodness inside others instead of the beauty that they mask on the outside? Imagine a world where Kenneth Cole watches didn't hold any value and Christian Louboutin shoes were just as valuable as the toll booth change from Syracuse to Albany? I applaud my brother for he has given me hope that there has to be others out there like him and that one day they will make us all see how greedy we really are and prove to us how much the simple things in life can mean so much!!

Getting Old!

As I have reached the prime age of 22, I can't help but feel very old! I am now the same age as the cartoon characters I used to love so much! Although I know this is not the case at all and I have my whole life ahead of me, I still think to myself that now after having graduated college and entering the real world that I am getting old! I remember when I was younger, swinging on the monkey bars on the playground in elementary school thinking to myself that I couldn't wait until I was all grown up! I was in such a hurry to grow up that it all happened so fast! I have always been on the fast track, I became a papergirl for my neighborhood at the young age of 12, had my first boyfriend at 14, started college when I was 17 and then got my first real job at 21. If I could do it all over again, I would have stopped to enjoy the simple life. I would go back to being 4 again when there was no bills to pay, no job to rush into and no responsibilities to worry about. I would love to go back to when the only thing on my schedule was when the Rugrats were on T.V.

If you want to feel real old check this out!

Creativity

I needed to figure out if this 2010 Ford Escape was four-wheel drive or not this morning and without even hesitation I turned to good 'ole Google. I received the answer in less than five seconds but this would not have been the case even ten years ago. I probably would have called my dad who is a car dealer and he would have probably looked it up in a book that he had or known it off the top of his head. The Internet is great for so many things but has it made us lazy and less creative? Every time I need an answer like if Syracuse has only won one NCAA Championship or who Donald Sutherland is all I have to do is slide my finger across my iPhone and the answers are literally at my fingertips. It is hard for me to imagine life without the Internet because it has been such an integrated part of my life but even when I was just in elementary school I vaguely remember having to look things up in books and do some serious research. So has the Internet really helped us or has it caused us to expect everything to come easily? Even this picture I have on my blog I found on the Internet. If I sat for a while and thought of something I am sure I could have created something on my own but why would I do that when there is so much information out there to be had? I would do anything to go back to being five again when everything was so simple....

Car Crash

Again sticking with yesterdays theme, I was just recently in a car crash where both my roommate and I are lucky to be alive! A drunk driver crossed the double yellow lines, swerved and hit my roommates car. He hit the car so hard that we ended up horizontal in the middle of the road. Since the airbags imploded, we had some difficulty getting out of the car and by the time we did the other car had already taken off! My roommate and I were fine, luckily, but if he had hit us straight on we probably would have more serious injuries. I am so thankful that although the car was totaled, the accident wasn't as bad as it could have been! Near death experiences really make you look at life differently!

Life Changes

I am going to stick with the theme about how life has changed over the years, although this may sound cheesy to some but it boggles my mind about how different life is today than even when my parents were growing up! My parents aren't even that old, my dad will be celebrating his 50th birthday next year but when he talks about his college years and life experience it seems like so long ago!
My parents were high school sweet hearts, this alone does not even happen at all anymore, and they just celebrated their 25th anniversary. When they graduated high school they moved out and never looked back. My mom was only 18 years old when she left her home to start her own life and she was only 22 when she married my dad. Does anyone even move out when they are 18 anymore? With the boomerang generation, most kids are now going back home even after college to live with their parents. This was almost unheard of twenty years ago! What has the world come to? Kids are now more dependent on their parents longer, getting married later in life and having children almost in their middle ages! What does this mean for us in the future?
The recession has really done more harm than people realize and has created a vicious cycle spiraling out of control. College graduates are forced to move back home because of the overwhelming debt coming out of college, which is devaluating real estate because they are purchasing homes later in life, mainly due to financial reasons. Maybe I am biased in the fact that I am a college graduate and the stress of debt is almost overwhelming. It puts pressure on everything we do in life, whether it be getting a job, finding a home and even finding a life partner! Isn't is sad that now before thinking about being with someone we now have to think about the debt they bring to the table??
When I heard that Obama was talking about erasing all college debt this got me to thinking, imagine how much different life would be?? College students wouldn't be moving back home because they would have the finances to purchase a home, therefore facilitating marriage and creating families. This, in turn, would put more money back into the economy and possibly climbing out of this funk of a recession that we are in! One can only dream! Happy Friday!!