My Second Quarter

I guess the title of my blog needs a little explaining so that you can understand my perspective in what I'm writing. My Second Quarter has a two-fold meaning, but it really all goes back to me getting ready to start the second quarter of my life... assuming I'll live to be 100 and get to have my smiling face on Good Morning America or whichever show that is. You know what I'm talking about... right??

So about a year ago, I was going through a really tough time. I had been struggling for a while with my place in life. I was 24, single, and I had yet to find a "real" job. I just didn't feel like I was where I should be 2.5 years out of college. On top of that, my dog Buster had recently passed away, which meant I lost my roommate and best friend, as sad as that sounds. Then, while I was home for Christmas, I found out I had no job to come back to in January. While not a "real" job by many people's standards, it was the first job that I had truly loved, and having that taken away from me was pretty much the last straw that sent me spiraling into a dark place. While I was out of work and feeling like I really had nothing going for me, I became "deathly" ill with bronchitis, ear infections, and the flu. At that point I was stuck in my little house, all alone, with nothing but horrible feelings about myself and my life. That, my friends, was the beginning of my little "quarter life crisis" (which, by the way, is totally legit... I even wrote a paper about it... and thank God it's not just me). Thus, a year later and with some of those issues resolved, I'm moving past the quarter life crisis and into my second quarter. Clever, eh?

Now here's the really clever part... at least in my little head. If you know me, you wouldn't be surprised that when I think about quarters, my mind goes to football. So as I started thinking about the quarters of my life, I thought about the quarters of a football game. During a football game, what happens at the end of the first quarter? The teams switch ends of the field. The team with the ball still has the ball, and it is placed in the same position at the opposite end of the field. There is no kickoff or possession change--the only thing that changes is the scenery. The same team gets to keep moving forward, from the same spot, but just in a new direction with a new perspective. That's how I feel about where I am right now. I'm about to start a new part of my life, but I don't get to start over completely. I'm moving forward from where I am, but I feel like I've got a new perspective on where I'm going. The buzzer has sounded, and I'm moving to the other end of the field to start the next quarter of this game I call life. Cheesy, yes... but still a clever analogy, I think.

I still wonder a lot of times what I'm doing, how I got here, and where to go from here, but I think I'm getting past that point of panic and feeling like I've failed my parents because I don't have some fancy job and a big ring on my finger. Come May when I have my MBA in hand and am job searching, that panic may set in again, but I definitely think this is a whole new part of my life, and I'm leaving that quarter life crisis behind. I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences as I move forward into my second quarter and find out just what life has in store for me!