It's been approximately 58 days, 1 hour and 11 minutes since I've become a college graduate. And since that happened, I have been asked "so what do you want to do with that?" "and now what are you doing?" "do you have a job yet?" or some variation of that approximately one hundred billion times.

I get it, I totally understand. You graduate college and you get a job and then the rest of your life starts there. But the truth is, I have no idea what I want to spend five days a week for the next 35 years doing. I don't know what the goal is, I don't have a plan and I honestly think it's crazy that at 22 years old I'm expected to have that figured out.

I've always wanted to blog. I love writing and photography and I'm constantly looking for more blogs to follow and now is as good a time as any to start. I have all the free time in the world while starting the dreaded job search and plenty of ideas bobbing around my head, and blogging seems like the perfect platform to experiment with. A hobby to keep my busy in the meantime might be just the remedy for a girl without a plan.

I was just thinking about all of this the other day when something really weird happened. But in order to understand it completely, I'll have to give a little background.

Every since I was little-- I'm talking five or six-- I was obsessed with writing. I was the kid who begged to go down the pen aisle in Wal-Mart and was absolutely giddy over a brand new notebook. Taking notice of this, my poppop always told both me, and my mom, that I was going to be a writer. He read all of my silly, little stories that I wrote in school and always encouraged me to keep writing and keep thinking of things to write about. He constantly pushed me to explore my creativity, whether that meant showing me slides and slides of negatives, taking me to buy my very own set of watercolors or writing a story about a teddy bear lost in Las Vegas-- he was an artist through and through. He passed away in 2006 when I was 12 years old and to this day, I still regret how much of our time together I took for granted.

I'm a firm believer in signs. I believe that when people that you love go, they send you signs and usually right when you need them most. Poppop sends us butterflies.

So the other day, I was sitting outside in my backyard catching up on some blogs (this post actually-- about a grandpa no less) and thinking about how I really wanted to start my own, when a butterfly fluttered by and landed right on the arm of the chair that I was sitting on. It only stayed for a second; just long enough for me to notice it and make sense of the situation, but it was there and I immediately knew what it meant.

And so here I am, starting a blog because of a butterfly. Welcome.

Little Blank Boxes

I remember when I was little, I always would look forward to flipping over to that brand new page on whatever cutesy calendar I had decided on for the year. I looked forward to seeing a different picture on the wall above my bed. I loved scribbling in all my “appointments” which were more like play dates and “things to remember” that were more like the birthdays of the other seven year olds in my class. There was just something about the fresh sheet of paper and the little blank boxes that would soon become filled with memories and moments as the days of the month passed by.

I’ve always found some sort of peace at the beginning of a brand new month. But there’s something really special about the first of January-- a brand new year, full of possibilities.

I’m going to go ahead and say that 2015 definitely wasn’t one of my best or favorite years, by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of things have happened in these past twelve months—some good and some bad, but almost all of them have changed me in some way or another. This year I lost some really important people in my life. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve grown up a lot and maybe that’s the reason that this year has played out the way that it has. The optimistic side of me really wants to believe that everything that’s happened has happened for a reason and that one day it’s all going to make sense. But I'd be lying if I said that I've had an easy time truly believing that.

I’ve learned some really hard lessons; like how to act like an adult when all you really want to do is cry like a baby and hide from the world. In the past twelve months, I’ve learned how incredibly important it is to spend time with the people you love. I’ve learned how quickly things can change and how your whole world can be upended at the drop of a dime. Above all though, this year I’ve learned that life is crazy and that it’s the most precious thing we’ve got.

Now, I’m not saying that the entire year was shot to shit and not a single good thing happened in the past 365 days. Plenty of good things happened, more good than bad to be honest. There have been plenty of happy days, more laughs than I can ever begin to number and moments of pure bliss that will linger on for a lifetime. I’ve discovered some of my most sincere passions and found myself, as a person, more so than any other year that I can remember. It was a good year when you look at it as a whole, it really was. But the idea of starting fresh, with a calendar full of 366 (it's a leap year!) little blank boxes seems like the perfect remedy for a girl who's had a hell of a year.

If I’ve taken anything from this past year, it’s that every one of those little blank boxes counts. No matter how small or insignificant it may seem, it counts. Every one of those boxes represents 24 hours of your life and every one of them counts for something bigger and better.

Somewhere along the line I stopped asking for that new 12-month calendar for Christmas every year. I either couldn't settle on something I wanted to look at for an entire year or I didn't want it hanging on the wall or I just didn't think it was serving its purpose, maybe. I'm not really sure what happened to be honest but it stopped, whatever it was. Now I'm not implying that by spending $20 on a pile of paper your year is going to be perfect, smooth sailing and full of all the most wonderful memories and nothing but positivity. But what I'm saying, is that maybe by having that silly little reminder on the wall, we'll go and do the things we really want to do. We'll be reminded that all of our possibilities are just hanging up there and all we have to do is go and get them.