At the turn of the decade - or, in other words, a few weeks ago - I had an urge to write. As I scrolled through social media posts waving goodbye to 2019 and welcoming 2020, I was inspired by the insights my friends, classmates, and acquaintances had shared: highlights from the past decade, successes and failures, ambitious goals and lessons learned.
And naturally, after so much inspiration, my thoughts turned to my own life. What had the past year meant for me? What would the coming year hold? We'd done so much in 2019, and 2020 promised to be even fuller. And yet, I couldn't seem to weave together these disparate stories.
My year - my life, even - felt scattered and undefined. So I didn't write a New Year's post. But I did make a New Year's resolution: to find the elusive storyline that connected all that had happened the prior year and all we were looking forward to in the coming months.
So, in the first week of the new year, Seth and I spent a few evenings looking at old photos and flipping through our 2019 calendar, recalling hundreds of beautiful moments. We reminisced about travels near and far, filling weekends with family adventures, catching up with friends, achievements at work. And still, I struggled to come up with one coherent narrative.
At first, I was quite perplexed by my apparent inability to tell a story about myself. But then, I realized something - I was hopelessly out of practice.
In high school, I wrote all the time - handwritten journals dripping with emotions, poems in the margins of my notes, numerous creative writing assignments. A few years later, I launched my first blog. I was a newly-engaged college graduate and reluctant investment banker searching for a virtual escape from long hours at the office. The blog, which I'd named Girl With A Ring, was a lighthearted, simple chronicle of the yearlong wedding planning process.
Girl With A Ring wound down shortly after my wedding, and I went searching for the next phase of my life. When I started blogging again in 2013, I had left finance, gotten a Master's degree, and was working in the education field, cycling through several roles in a search for the elusive dream job. It was frightening to jump off the familiar finance career ladder and stumble around making mistakes. But it was also exhilarating - here was adult life, finally, with all its uncertainty and difficulty, and I was - mostly- figuring it out.
Eager to capture these first years of adulthood, I started writing 87% Grown Up. Unlike my wedding blog, which had attracted an audience of fellow brides, 87% Grown Up was small and personal. And in addition to chronicling highlights and lowlights of my daily life, I posted random musings and epiphanies I had along the way.
Though I didn't know it at the time, 87% Grown Up would bear witness to some of the of my biggest-ever life transitions: moving cross-country to Houston and giving birth to my first child. Looking back, I am so glad I took the time to write about my life in this period as it was happening, despite the competing pulls of work and family.
In 2016, I launched a new passion project: Houston New Moms, a website and blog for new parents in Houston. I shared a bit of my own parenting journey on HNM, but the site's primary purpose was sharing ideas and resources with other parents in my city.
Never one to leave new places unexplored, I criss-crossed the Houston metropolitan area with baby in tow, seeking out baby-friendly playgrounds, restaurants, and activities, taking lots of photos, and writing them up in my blog. I used the blog to power community projects as well: for instance, I organized annual drives for baby supplies to donate to children's charities. I even decided to go far beyond my comfort zone by reaching out to local businesses to pitch paid collaborations.
HNM's success encouraged me to think bigger, so I reached out to Mommy Nearest, a national website that was in the process of launching in Houston. I became a regular contributor to the site, writing mostly about things to do with kids in Houston, but also more personal stories about my parenting experience.
With all of these writing projects, my personal blog was relegated to the back burner. Finally, a couple of years ago, I shut it down. At this time in my life, I was balancing numerous freelance commitments - an edtech startup, Ukrainian nonprofits, editing academic manuscripts, tutoring, and, of course, writing parenting articles - and trying to keep my workload part-time so I could spend plenty of time with my 2-year-old. There simply wasn't enough time for an online journal on top of everything else.
When we moved back from Houston to NY, everything shifted again. My main job, the edtech startup, went bust. Thousands of miles from Houston, I had to let HNM go. While trying to figure out a new blueprint for my professional life, I also struggled to adapt to suburban living and set up all the practical necessities for our new life - furniture, preschool, doctors, childcare.
I didn't totally stop writing after moving to NY. I kept publishing occasional pieces on various parenting sites. Then, early in 2019, I decided to try to break out of the parenting niche. I loved writing about being a parent, but it was just one sliver of who I was and what I cared about. So, I started pitching various ideas, which led to opportunities to write for The Independent, Nonprofit Quarterly, The Hechinger Report, and, my crowning achievement, an investigative piece for The Atlantic.
But even as I stretched my boundaries as a writer, I neglected to take the time to write - or even think - about my life, to analyze the ups and downs and draw conclusions and connect each day's events with a bigger narrative. I was so busy doing that I forgot to reflect.
And that's how I ended up struggling to articulate my thoughts in a simple end-of-the-year Facebook post.
2020 seems like an opportune time to resurrect 87% Grown Up. Another wave of major changes is on the horizon - we're expecting our second kiddo, Seth is getting ready to leave his longtime job and take an extended sabbatical, and Lana is going to turn 5 and start school. Meanwhile, I'm transitioning out of the role I've held at Ukraine Global Scholars for the past two years, beginning a graduate program, and formally launching a foundation to pursue the nonprofit work Seth and I have been piloting for the past few months. And though I might be busier than ever, I want to capture this fascinating time - to start telling my story again.
And naturally, after so much inspiration, my thoughts turned to my own life. What had the past year meant for me? What would the coming year hold? We'd done so much in 2019, and 2020 promised to be even fuller. And yet, I couldn't seem to weave together these disparate stories.
My year - my life, even - felt scattered and undefined. So I didn't write a New Year's post. But I did make a New Year's resolution: to find the elusive storyline that connected all that had happened the prior year and all we were looking forward to in the coming months.
So, in the first week of the new year, Seth and I spent a few evenings looking at old photos and flipping through our 2019 calendar, recalling hundreds of beautiful moments. We reminisced about travels near and far, filling weekends with family adventures, catching up with friends, achievements at work. And still, I struggled to come up with one coherent narrative.
At first, I was quite perplexed by my apparent inability to tell a story about myself. But then, I realized something - I was hopelessly out of practice.
In high school, I wrote all the time - handwritten journals dripping with emotions, poems in the margins of my notes, numerous creative writing assignments. A few years later, I launched my first blog. I was a newly-engaged college graduate and reluctant investment banker searching for a virtual escape from long hours at the office. The blog, which I'd named Girl With A Ring, was a lighthearted, simple chronicle of the yearlong wedding planning process.
Girl With A Ring wound down shortly after my wedding, and I went searching for the next phase of my life. When I started blogging again in 2013, I had left finance, gotten a Master's degree, and was working in the education field, cycling through several roles in a search for the elusive dream job. It was frightening to jump off the familiar finance career ladder and stumble around making mistakes. But it was also exhilarating - here was adult life, finally, with all its uncertainty and difficulty, and I was - mostly- figuring it out.
Eager to capture these first years of adulthood, I started writing 87% Grown Up. Unlike my wedding blog, which had attracted an audience of fellow brides, 87% Grown Up was small and personal. And in addition to chronicling highlights and lowlights of my daily life, I posted random musings and epiphanies I had along the way.
Though I didn't know it at the time, 87% Grown Up would bear witness to some of the of my biggest-ever life transitions: moving cross-country to Houston and giving birth to my first child. Looking back, I am so glad I took the time to write about my life in this period as it was happening, despite the competing pulls of work and family.
In 2016, I launched a new passion project: Houston New Moms, a website and blog for new parents in Houston. I shared a bit of my own parenting journey on HNM, but the site's primary purpose was sharing ideas and resources with other parents in my city.
Never one to leave new places unexplored, I criss-crossed the Houston metropolitan area with baby in tow, seeking out baby-friendly playgrounds, restaurants, and activities, taking lots of photos, and writing them up in my blog. I used the blog to power community projects as well: for instance, I organized annual drives for baby supplies to donate to children's charities. I even decided to go far beyond my comfort zone by reaching out to local businesses to pitch paid collaborations.
HNM's success encouraged me to think bigger, so I reached out to Mommy Nearest, a national website that was in the process of launching in Houston. I became a regular contributor to the site, writing mostly about things to do with kids in Houston, but also more personal stories about my parenting experience.
With all of these writing projects, my personal blog was relegated to the back burner. Finally, a couple of years ago, I shut it down. At this time in my life, I was balancing numerous freelance commitments - an edtech startup, Ukrainian nonprofits, editing academic manuscripts, tutoring, and, of course, writing parenting articles - and trying to keep my workload part-time so I could spend plenty of time with my 2-year-old. There simply wasn't enough time for an online journal on top of everything else.
When we moved back from Houston to NY, everything shifted again. My main job, the edtech startup, went bust. Thousands of miles from Houston, I had to let HNM go. While trying to figure out a new blueprint for my professional life, I also struggled to adapt to suburban living and set up all the practical necessities for our new life - furniture, preschool, doctors, childcare.
I didn't totally stop writing after moving to NY. I kept publishing occasional pieces on various parenting sites. Then, early in 2019, I decided to try to break out of the parenting niche. I loved writing about being a parent, but it was just one sliver of who I was and what I cared about. So, I started pitching various ideas, which led to opportunities to write for The Independent, Nonprofit Quarterly, The Hechinger Report, and, my crowning achievement, an investigative piece for The Atlantic.
But even as I stretched my boundaries as a writer, I neglected to take the time to write - or even think - about my life, to analyze the ups and downs and draw conclusions and connect each day's events with a bigger narrative. I was so busy doing that I forgot to reflect.
And that's how I ended up struggling to articulate my thoughts in a simple end-of-the-year Facebook post.
2020 seems like an opportune time to resurrect 87% Grown Up. Another wave of major changes is on the horizon - we're expecting our second kiddo, Seth is getting ready to leave his longtime job and take an extended sabbatical, and Lana is going to turn 5 and start school. Meanwhile, I'm transitioning out of the role I've held at Ukraine Global Scholars for the past two years, beginning a graduate program, and formally launching a foundation to pursue the nonprofit work Seth and I have been piloting for the past few months. And though I might be busier than ever, I want to capture this fascinating time - to start telling my story again.
and dipping it into the proverbial ink.
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