The Bittersweet Smell of Changing Winds.

The day I turned 25 (which was like ten days ago), people asked me if I felt different. And I told them no, because I've acted like a late-twenty-something for a while ("But why do they have to play their music SO LOUD? Can't a girl chew her antacids in peace??"). Plus I've been calling myself 25 for months, partially because it's a nice, stable-sounding number, and partially because I'm too lazy to remember how old I technically am.

But within ten days, all that has changed. Now I feel like an old, oooooooold person. I feel...thirty.

Two days ago, this conversation transpired:
Jane: "My boyfriend's mother keeps hinting at babies. Blech!"
Monica: "My dad is the same way! All he talks about is grandchildren! I'm like, NO, Dad! Not for a looooong time, IF AT ALL!"
Me: "Thank GOD my sister had a baby, so no one bugs me about it! Phew!"
Carla: "I'm pregnant."
*Screaming*

So Mozel Tov to Carla and her husband! I believe they are 1-part excited, 3-parts terrified, and that sounds about right to me. But the conversations that have transpired since The Announcement have revealed so much change in such a short period of time. Someone call Daniel Faraday, because I'm going to start getting nosebleeds.


This is the ever classic "Faraday Concerned Face." My niece, Libby, is great at it, too:



And this is basically the face I've been walking around with since Wednesday.

In a nutshell, I've realized that nearly everyone is moving out of the city/state. And Joe and I are planning on living together in the spring. So, by this time next year, given that things go well, I'll have a whole new group of friends, a new job, and I'll be living with someone who has to shave their face.

I suppose I'm mostly excited, because I'm really rooting for some quality new friends and job and apartment. But thinking about losing the people who have gotten me out of the Hell that is post-college...well, it makes me want to curl up in the fetal position under a fuzzy blue blanket and blog, specifically. And non-specifically, it makes me feel lost. In the same way I felt when they stopped making my favorite kind of cracker so I walked around aimlessly for months, eating sweet pickles from the jar.

MAN those crackers were good. I don't know who made them, but they came in a blue box and they were covered in magical southwest flavored red powder and they were thin and shaped in Navajo blanket patterns. Anyone? ANYONE?!

Where was I? Oh, sadness. Meh, I think I've said what I need to about current sadness. My new focus is the crackers. You all need to help me find those crackers. STAT.