I Still Live With My Parents.

Specifically, I live in this tiny bedroom.

This is something I have avoided my entire adult life. My only refuge is knowing that this is a very temporary situation. But for now, I am just another millennial stereotype. #blessed .

Yesterday, I officially turned in mine and my husband's keys to our beautiful apartment we lived in for two years. It wasn't perfect, but it had double sinks in the bathroom and a water dispenser on the fridge so that's luxury to me. We moved all of our stuff (minus a couple suitcases and some valuables) into a tiny storage unit and parked ourselves and our two fur babies into my sister's old bedroom in my childhood home.

Luckily, as I said before, this is only temporary. My husband and I are both educators. He just got hired as a full time teacher after spending his first three semesters out of college as a substitute. Back in June, we had to inform our leasing office if we had planned to renew or move out. We were still in the process of applying and interviewing so we had to make the decision to go ahead and move even though we had no idea what are financial situation would be or where we could even go. Even just days before the move we weren't sure where we would end up, which is how we ended up in this house with my parents. It has all happened so fast that we've hardly had time to process it.

Exciting things are happening, but like all things in life it is a process-a very slow one at that. When you're a teenager in high school and you start thinking about college you think to yourself that you'll be in college for four years then jump right into a career. You'll work hard and enjoy every minute of it and you'll be rewarded for your work through verbal praise and proper salary raises. You don't think much about the tiny details of adulthood because you don't really know what they are. Well, at least I didn't. My post high school experience has been quite a roller coaster. There have been a few ups but very very many downs. My husband finally getting hired as a full time teacher is what we feel to be the start of our lives having more ups than downs. I've shared very little about these downs on social media because I've always had a love-hate relationship with it (as I'm sure most of you do as well). I find myself often editing my words or just not posting them at all because I don't want to appear as though I don't have things figured out or that things aren't going according to plan. We tend to only show the good parts of our lives because those are the things we want to share with others and those are the things we feel proud of. However, this can also create a place where someone who's life isn't so perfect will compare themselves to what they see and feel frustrated and hurt that their life doesn't seem to be as on track as everyone else's.

That has definitely happened to me. Especially over the past year.

This blog is going to be about the bad times just as much as the good times because that's what life is all about-the good, the bad, and the ugly. I think we can forget that sometimes as we scroll through our Facebook feeds or Instagram posts and see nothing but other's successes-their vacations, their sweet anniversary posts, their weddings, their babies, their new houses, their new cars, their successful careers, etc. It took me seven years to graduate from college with my bachelor's degree. I am 15 months post grad and still not working the job I went to college for. I live with my parents (for now). I'm not winning Teacher of the Year. I'm not buying a new car. I'm not starting a family in our brand new house. But that's ok. And I want you to know that if you're in the same boat that it is ok. It's not wrong, it's just real. Sometimes the real world isn't four years of college followed by an instant career, a marriage, house, and children.

Let's get real about the real world, shall we?