I'm not going to say I'm feelin 22, but I'm not going to say I'm not either.

Tuesday was m' birthday and I turned a whopping 22! 

Yikes. 

My amazing friends lessened the 'yikes' a little bit by distracting me all day with my two favorite things: food and attention.  

We planned on going to one of the more hip bars in Savannah for happy hour drinks and appetizers, but when we showed up at 5:50 like a group of senior citizens (come on! It was a Tuesday and we have homework to do!), the bar was closed (this only adding to my extreme insecurity about being the lame kid at the bar. I'm still relatively new to this whole drinking game, ya know). So we went with Plan B, which stands for Plan BETTER, and ended up having drinks and LOTS of cheese on the rooftop of one of my favorite restaurants in Savannah, Local 11 Ten. 

It was quiet and a warm Savannah breeze made it a perfect autumn evening. 

Ever the life of the party, Oli insisted that we ring in 22 with some Tequila. I'm really glad I did if for no other reason than the fact that I now have this picture of all of us that I absolutely love. 

(Once again, not the coolest drinker. That face. Really? Don't be such a baby, Patton.)

These gals sure know how to make a girl feel special. They all went around and affirmed me (before the shots), which made me feel like a million bucks and reminded me once again how extremely and ridiculously blessed I am to live here and have such cool, smart, fun, kind friends. I mean, I don't know if I've mentioned that on here before, but they're the tops. 

I'm glad I picked them. Just kidding.

A little earlier in the day, I even got a little sad, quiet and annoying thinking about the fact that this is my last birthday here in Savannah with all of these dweebs. I remember my very first birthday here four years ago, just a few weeks after I moved in. I barely had any friends and Spencer was going to be out of town for my birthday which basically cut down my friend group by about 65% right off the bat.  Remember this post? I sound so positive! "The Girl Who's Ready for Anything!" Come on, Julia. I feel ok telling you now that I was definitely totally lying. I felt lonely and wondered if Savannah would ever feel like home. Since then, I've had some of the best birthdays in my entire life (20) (21) thanks to these people and their (forced) understanding of the fact that I need birthday affection like Noah needs Allie. What will I do next year? Who will perform a choreographed dance for me at 6:00 in the morning to Birthday Sex? Who will help me pick out my birthday outfit? Who will make me do a shot, but also understand my very real fear of alcohol poisoning and won't push me to do more? Who will take pictures of me being all cute and birthday-ie without me having to ask? Who will talk me off the ledge when I'm freaking out about turning 23!? 

What an disaster adventure it will be. 

I'm going to go now emotionally eat the remainder of the chocolate soufflé Susie made me. 

(WHO WILL MAKE ME CHOCOLATE SOUFFLÉ NEXT YEAR?)

(PS- Cliche or not, this is basically an exact description of how I feel about life right now. "Happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time." Swifty knows.)

22

I went to bed last night at 10:30 sharp.
I've set my alarm for 6:00 every morning this week.
I'm eating oatmeal for breakfast in a bowl that I can flip completely upside down with nothing coming out.
My bed is already made for the day and, as far as I know, no ones parents are going to be in town.
And I'm going to the gym to run on the treadmill.

This is 22.

Urbanna Farm

As research for my senior collection (which, I promise, I really am going to explain in a overly detailed, run on sentence riddled, mostly confusing blog post very soon) I got to go visit a very special place a mere 20 minutes away from my home in Savannah called Urbanna Farm. 

Our friend, Eliza, who we met three years ago when she lived in our old house before we did, and her husband Matt recently moved onto the farm to work, experience and learn from a fully sustainable family run farm with the farmer's themselves, an awesome family, the Williams. I hadn't talked to Eliza in a while, but I texted her and basically invited myself into their lives to observe for a few hours, what it essentially, a huge building block in the basis of my senior project: farm life. 

When Frances, Spencer and I headed out to their home on Friday and pulled into a dirt driveway and the Williams' smiling faces, I just couldn't have been more excited. 

Eliza greeted us and gave us a tour and, guys... guys... their farm was the coolest. Baby pigs, mama pigs, chickens, a rooster (that we named Rufus), rabbits, goats, herbs, SWEET POTATOES, tree frogs, tractors, and open... space... ahhh. It was glorious. 

I took a bunch of pictures (mostly of the chickens) and lingered around their property until it was obvious that we were stalling and just wanted to hang out. The entire drive home, I would not shut up about how cool that was and how inspired I felt about the coming year. And it almost made me want to quit this whole fashion mess and become a farmer! (I said almost). What a rewarding life that must be. 

MEMBERS OF THE WONDERFUL URBANNA FARM: 

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, I WILL BE BACK. 

One week down

I started my senior year of college this week. That sentence is something that I don't think I quite understand the gravity of yet. I, 21 year old Julia who sometimes still forgets to put on her deodorant in the morning, who still has some clothes in her closet from Jr. High, who hasn't quite dropped that habit of inserting the word 'like' into the unnecessary parts of my sentences, started my very last, very most, veryest, year of college. This week. I mean, we all get how weird that is, right?

I remember being at church one day when I was a little kid, maybe five or six,  and a college aged family friend was back in Newport visiting for the weekend. Everyone was so excited to see her and asking her tons of questions or just telling her how old and mature she looked. I remember thinking that I wanted to be her. And how it looked like she must just be on cruise control for the rest of her perfect, college aged life. So, spoiler alert: I was one million percent wrong. This week (and, let's get real here, the last four years) has been a huge boiler room of alarms going off, screaming at me about things that I'm unprepared about, questions I can't answer, problems I can't fix and a deadline of real life getting uncomfortably close to becoming my life. 

If you've read this blog for more than five minutes, this isn't news to you. I'm a planner. A list-maker. A worrier. An over analyzer. A challenger. And, according to the Meyer's Briggs test I took the other day an ISTJ (there is major debate within my roommates whether I doctored my answers to make the test say I was an introvert-- it's not secret that I think that introverts are supremely superior to extroverts). But guess what else I am? A hard worker. A trooper. A talker. A problem solver. And an introvert (I love the new introverted me). So why is it so hard for me to come to terms with the fact that the next year, and probably next handful of years, is probably, definitely, most certainly going to be uncomfortable, hard and I'm sure in some moments, down right bad, but that I can do it? Everyone does it! You have to do it! And that I just need to shut up about it! 

BECAUSE I CAN'T. As cool as the introverted, arty girl persona is to me (and how fascinating people like that are in an almost zoo-like, observation driven obsession) I won't ever be able to be that person. Suffering in silence is not my bag. Sitting in the corner and being shy would just be such a missed opportunity for people to laugh at my jokes. And not asking people a million questions just leaves me itching to hear what their answers would have been if I had asked. Like the embarrassment of going bra shopping in third grade, a whole two years before most of my twiggy friends, I'm accepting it and moving on. 

SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

1. This year is gonna suck some days. But it is my life's goal right now to make it also a happy celebration of four years of living with my best friends during what are, arguably, the best years of my life so far. (This may sound dramatic, but this is where I'm coming from, people.) 
2. I'm gonna complain. I'm allowed to complain. I promise that I'll work on cutting it down a whole lot. But it's going to happen. And it's going to happen on this blog. And when it does, can we all just give me some slack? Because I think sometimes I find that people need to complain. Or maybe just I do. 
3. There will be a lot of therapeutic soup making.
4. I might regret this later, but I am stating now that I am more willing to make sacrifices on my senior project (and perhaps the integrity of my gpa) to be able to enjoy what is left of this golden blink called college. 

But this is what has happened so far in just the first 7 days. And I gotta say... so far, so good. 

Frances and I drove from Dallas to Savannah. I always love this time. That drive never really gets old for me. (Besides when I'm actually doing it... I could do without actually doing it. But besides that, I really like it.)

And then we went out to Abe's to ring in the new year with Lindsay, Kara, and Oli. I can say with full confidence that this is my favorite bar in Savannah. Some may say that we're locals. 

And then I hit the ground running on my senior project. You better believe that I have a whole lot to say about this senior project. A whole lot. I'm going to be saying so much, in fact, that I'm going to dedicate a whole darn post on it. So stay tuned. 

Frances and I are taking a class together for the first time since the beginning of freshman year. (Remember this video?) We barely knew each other then and the class wasn't very good. Now I know Frances way better and this class is going to be amazing so I can appreciate it more when Frances does things in class that I think are funny.

And we hosted our first dinner party of the year last night. Claire made her delicious and famous pork tenderloin. Spencer made mashed potatoes. Frances made asparagus. Oli got the napkins out. I made carrots. I really like these people. 

See what I mean? No stress yet. 

But I promise you that it's coming. And don't say I didn't warn you. 

I've been having a hard time blogging lately, and I feel like I haven't been writing well. Take, for example, this entire post. I am about to post this, but I don't really feel like I've actually said anything at all. Sentence structure fails me and my thesis is non existent. You guys still love me when my writing sucks though, right? 

Seattle

Oh how lucky am I that my smarty pants sister chose to go to grad school (for clinical psychology) and gets to live beautiful Seattle, Washington for the next six years?

This last week, she packed up all her shoes, books and her best raincoat and headed north from sunny southern California to the wonderfully rainy Pacific Northwest. The land of hip cat coffee shops and lush green trees as far as the eye can see. Where do I sign? (I smell a new post-grad plan cooking)

Kaitlin and her best friend Kaytee found the coolest little apartment in quiet Magnolia and my mom and I got to head up there are and help her set up shop. We ate seafood and hiked and laughed and went to Target about five million times. I already can't wait to go back.

Thoughts over Key Lime Pie

I am more a visitor here than I am a daughter

Conversations are shorter and then they get longer after a few days of wiping the dust off

Conversations feel urgent. I need to tell you this before Christmas.

We talk about harder things than we used to, because life is more matte

There are babies and there are husbands and there are boyfriends and there is not enough time to catch up

Especially with all of the luggage that I brought back with me from New York 

I always trip over the sentence "We lived in the east village" because it feels like a story that I'm making up

Kaits and I lie in the grass and for a few seconds it's quiet and sleepy because we're both so warm and happy

1881, 523, 307, 1018, 1841, 1835, 117, 1817

I think my stomach hurts more often because I know that I've really done it this time

I've really changed and they see it too 

So there's nothing else to do but eat bean and cheese burritos pretending that they taste as good as they used to

I don't know what I want. They don't know what they want. But the suitcases are in the hall and school starts on the 16th. 

I've never been more unsure. 

And I don't want to talk about it. 

Pre Seattle, Post Donuts

I'm going to miss the way her room always has random pens on the floor and how she pretends not to hear us when we call her name because she'd rather us just come hang out in her room.

Her room always smells smarter. Different than my room which smells more like body odor.