what my twenties have taught me

today i'm linking up with my sweet friend Sarah

and talking about a few things my twenties have taught me

i'm 28. so i've still got a couple years to go (thank God)

but this has been a pretty formative decade

and by golly,

i've come a long way

slurpee-pumping in spring formal attire. totally appropriate. circa 2003? 2004?

this hat was a mistake. as most hats are. (name that movie) but the sister is adorbs.

at my first hospital job...as an ER tech. these nurses (and that handy cop) taught me everything i know.

it doesn't count until you have a certificate stating you're a beermaster.

deep-sea fishing is the best. even when your fish is teensy.

fish are friends. and food.

trevi fountain. circa 2010.

santorini circa 2011

italia, circa 2010

 but seriously.

here's what i got for ya.

5 things.

since i'm a big fan of 5's.

travel. often. 
-to this day, my biggest regret in life is missing out on studying abroad during my junior year of undergrad. my university had an arrangement where you could go to London and study for a semester at Oxford and Cambridge, and all my friends were going. i let finances stand in my way. and though life had other plans for me...other lessons i never would have learned if i had gone, i can't help regretting that i didn't take out a loan and have that experience. ever since then, i've decided never to let money stand in the way of a travel opportunity. at this point, i've got student loan debt so big that a couple extra grand is a drop in the bucket. travel stretches you and forces you to grow as a person and contemplate things you probably wouldn't if you sat at home. and it connects you with the global community of humanity in a way that shrinks the world. kind of like blogging. (: anyway. it's worth it. always.

love will blow you away
-sarah says fairy tales are true, and i totally agree with her...as long as you're willing to expand your definition of fairy tale. handsome prince on a white horse coming to save you? maybe not. but a love that knocks you off your feet and takes your breath away? sure. that's possible. even when you least expect it. like smack in the middle of medical school. who goes to medical school and falls in love? this guy. that's who. and it's pretty spectacular. i'd even venture to say you should hold out for it. don't settle for less. i don't even know what else to say about it. the love in my marriage still surprises me. pretty much daily.

marriage looks different than you thought it would
-speaking of...while our love is deeper and fills me up more than i thought love could, marriage is not always a fairy tale. in fact, it is rarely so. men in movies and music and on tv act differently than men in real life. as they should...they're fake. in real life, men don't sense your feelings and bring you flowers when they're supposed to. they don't just offer to contribute to housework or automatically know how to make the bed. i had completely unrealistic expectations going into marriage, and it made our first year difficult. everyone says the first year is hard...and it is. but for different reasons depending on the couple. this was my reason.

it's not failure until you quit
-med school helped me out with this one. i failed my first exam...ever...in medical school. not exactly the prime time to be failing tests. i was devastated and was sure my dream of a career in medicine would be crushed. but it wasn't. i listened to a little ditty by my dear friend Bono (slight exaggeration. we're not friends. but if we were, i'd borrow his sunglasses.) which reminded me that messing up isn't failure, until you fail to try again. nobody gets everything right the first time. and if you think that you do, you should be a little afraid..because your day is coming! it's how you pick yourself back up and move on that defines you as a person and adds to your character in such a way that makes the failure worth something.

you are enough.
-there are millions of messages floating around out there trying to tell you otherwise. you're not pretty enough, or skinny enough, or smart enough, or crafty enough. you're never going to be able to have healthy babies because you waited too long and now your eggs are old (okay maybe that last one is a message that only i hear). sometimes the messages come disguised as "you could have done that better", or "good is the enemy of great". for me, i still struggle whenever i don't excel, usually whenever it comes to something academic (hey. i'm type A. you knew that already.). i have to remind myself that i am more than my grades. and the things i chose to do besides study (hang out with my husband, cook delicious food, read something nonacademic, blog) have enriched me as a person and made me better at what i do than just reading from a book ever could. it is enough. whatever you're doing, it is enough.

xoxo,

em