Drew Reunion

 

 My 5-year college reunion was the last weekend in May and it was surreal. I can't believe five years has gone by so quickly! Sometimes it is still a little hard for me to believe that I am getting older-- only a few more years from the big 3-0. I definitely do not see my current self as the young, naive girl I was in college. I have grown so much in these last 5 years, I would not change anything for the world. However, as I visited campus with my friends, and I reflected on my time at Drew University, I wish I knew then what I know now. That old saying "Hindsight is 20/20" is so true in this regard.

My dear friends rented a beautiful house for the weekend, but I only stopped in and spent Saturday with them. We headed to campus and gave ourselves a tour of the updated buildings. Drew is a small, private-university, so just about everything was small and quaint and just right for the number of students attending the college. (My friends and I joked about how our school was so small, we felt as though we knew everyone just because we saw them every day. But, when it came time to recall names, we failed miserably. Not to mention, we had our own names for people like "Burster" - for the girl who sporadically sprinted across the paths or down the hallways at the drop of a hat.) Many of the updates were so impressive, we hardly recognized the building from the inside. Our Student Center and Hall of Sciences were some of the major ones. My favorite part of our self-tour was walking down the hallways of the science building, reminiscing about which room we had cancer biology in, who our favorite professors were, and discovering many photos from our year on the walls, and in their own album!

Not many people from our year were at the reunion activities on campus, but the majority of us in my circle of friends made the effort to be there. I really enjoyed spending time with them. It was as though we had never lost contact, grown a little older or led separate lives away from living within several feet of each other, dance marathons, and fourth meals from Cluck-U. I love friendships like that. We ended the evening with dinner, playing a couple rounds of UNO and several really intense games of Jenga. I never knew I was so good at Jenga until then.

 

A Weekend Getaway

;

One of the perks of living in the Philadelphia area is that there are so many options for getting away from the hustle and bustle of city life. From a two-hour drive to the Pocono mountains to a less than two hour drive to the Jersey shore, there are many choices to getting away for even an overnight trip.

A couple weekends ago, Beau and I took off on an overnight trip to the Cape May/Wildwood NJ area. We stayed at a quaint little Bed & Breakfast (The Sea Gypsy) in Wildwood where we got to meet and chat with another couple at breakfast. We rode bikes together around the area, walked the boardwalk, and ate at a local diner. (Sidenote: I love diners, and am partial to ones in New Jersey.  Late nights at a college in North Jersey did that for me.) The next day we ventured off to Cape May. We ate expensive ice cream, bought a ton of salt-water taffies, photographed the bay and walked the beach, where we spotted some dolphins not too far away.

Sometimes we need a little break from the cares of life. And as young couple, we often need the time to clear our minds and regroup.

Lately: Wants

photo via here

Lately, I've been finding myself extremely frustrated with a lot of things. I have mainly been frustrated with situations and circumstances which ultimately is a result of hoping things were different. As time continued to progress, my frustrations have increased, however, I became less aware of what it was that I am frustrated with and more caught up in the fact that I was just  plain miserable. I have then decided to take some time to pin-point and evaluate these frustrations. What is it that and I want, and why I am frustrated that I do not have them. I constructed a list and this is what I have come up with... I want/would like to:

• Begin my career
• it would be nice to invited to an interview for a position and either be offered a position on the spot or even get a phone call that they are offering me a position. That is something I have yet to experience. I love medicine. I enjoy science. I would love to start my career in this field and have joy in teaching others, training others, or even gaining ore knowledge in this field as I go along. 
• Completely furnish and decorate our home.
• after two years of marriage, we finally have a sofa in the living room. One that we paid off on our own and there is no debt behind it. Of this, I am exceptionally thankful and happy about, but I wish we could have every bit of this place furnished and decorated.
• Start a family.
• I don't know, but something about getting married instantly had my heart set on raising children and having a family of our own. It hurts that my husband shies away from 'baby talk', and the longer we go on in our marriage without even as much as a tentative date as to when we will start trying for kids, the more hopeless I become... the more sad and wanting I am when I see other families, other pregnant women. I become bitter and think that it will never happen for us, because right now, my husband says he's not ready. And quite frankly, I guess we're not. 
• Travel.
• I want to take the train across the the U.S. To see the mountains in the midwest, the trees and the waterfall trails in the Pacific Northwest. I want to see my feet standing in clear blue waters in the Caribbean, and walk through soggy fields in Ireland. I want money (or lack thereof) to not be the sole deterrent from going to these places. 
• To be happy. Content. Joyous
• That wanting something (these things specifically) doesn't make me ungrateful or needy in the eyes of others. That people would not look at me and say cliche Christian things like "Well, if it is a part of God's plan for your life, then..." I just want to express what I've had bottled up within me for some time now and just have not had the time to sit down and think about why I have been in such a crappy mood lately. Also to think about what I would really like to accomplish in life.

In the end, I have what I need at the moment and that is enough. It suffices. I am sure that many of my wants will be fulfilled in the not too distant future.