Ice Cream and Introductions

The first thing you should know about me is that I love ice cream.

I don't mean that in a once-in-a-while-it's-pretty-good kind of way. I mean it in a my-husband-proposed-to-me-with-ice-cream-and-we-served-it-at-our-wedding-instead-of-cake kind of way. For years growing up I asked for ice cream cake for my birthday every year (which is in the dead of Canadian winter, by the way). I will travel for good ice cream, and I usually find the best places to get it wherever I live. Bonus points if the ice cream is dipped in chocolate.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. By way of introduction, you should also know that I'm 23, married to the man of my dreams, Canadian, and soon to be a certified Educational Assistant (also known as a Teacher's Aide or Paraprofessional).

Anyway, how does my love of ice cream relate to this brand new blog? Wes and I started this blog with the intention of helping people figure out what adulthood is all about and how to navigate the ups and downs and heaps of paperwork you didn't know you had to do until months after you were supposed to have done it. This blog should be a place where you can come to feel amused, uplifted, and maybe even enlightened as we share our experiences.

 One thing that I've learned in my few years of adulthood is that it isn't all about ice cream. It isn't all about freedom and reckless fun - though that is certainly part of it. It's also about managing responsibilities and taking care of yourself and others.

On the one hand, freedom is great. I don't know about you, but when I turned eighteen and graduated from high school, I felt exhilarated just knowing that I could do anything, go anywhere, and be anyone I wanted to! Life was a symphony of possibilities, and I was the concert master. And that was true, and still is. However, as we learned from watching Spiderman, "with great power comes great responsibility." Succeeding at adulthood is like mastering an art. It takes practice to figure out how to balance the exhilarating with the mundane. Some people go a little crazy and forget about the important things like maintaining relationships with people you care about, renewing your car insurance, and saving for retirement. Others get so bogged down with all the things they have to do that they forget that life is for living.

 It's like this: When you're an adult, you can do whatever you want. You can walk into the grocery store and buy every flavour of ice cream on the shelves. You can do it, but you choose not to.

Why? Because a) it'll make you sick, b) it won't all fit in the tiny freezer in your itty bitty apartment, c) it says something about you that you don't want your roommates/significant other to think about, d) you'll feel guilty about it later, and e) maxing out your credit card on five tons of ice cream of all things will not only hurt your credit score, but you'll be paying it off with interest for the next three years.

My goal in writing this blog is to help you find the balance. When I say that, I don't mean to say that I have it all figured out - believe you me, I make just as many mistakes as the next person. Maybe more. But my hope is that by sharing some of my experiences (good and bad), I can help you figure out how you want to lead your life. Hopefully you can avoid some of the pitfalls that I've experienced by reading my stories, and who knows? Maybe something I write will inspire you.