Let’s be real about…post-grad life

Hey y’all! I know this post is a little different from the rest and doesn't have much to do with food, but it is something that has been on my heart to share because I don’t think I am alone in this.

Let’s be real about post-grad life.

One of my favorite things to do is to take pictures of things that I find beautiful (I mean, who doesn’t, right?!) Sometimes, I feel like all I post on social media are just photo dumps of moments I have captured over time that make me smile. The gallery above may seem like a random assortment of aesthetic photos, but they all have one thing in common - most of these photos were taken while I was alone.

Back in college, the moments I spent truly on my own were few and far between. I often took for granted the sheer amount of time I got to spend with my friends and the people that truly understood me. Through the good times and the bad, there was always a shoulder to cry on or somebody to laugh with. College truly was the best four years of my life.

I recognize that this is not always the case for everybody. Some people go to college and don’t end up finding their people, or they just don’t go to college at all and find their people in other places. I get that. But for me, college was truly the highlight of my life so far because of the deep friendships I made.

Fundamentally, as human beings, we are made to be in relationship with other people. When we are in community, there is an intangible sense of fulfillment and purpose that we all experience.

All of this to say, there is joy still found in the moments that we aren’t bombarded (in the positive sense) with constant community. This is something I have been learning now that I have been doing life on my own.

For some context, after I graduated, I decided to move to a new place where I knew absolutely nobody far away from my friends and my family. It was a jump. A scary jump, to say the least. The kind of jump you make and force yourself not to think about too much; otherwise you might not make it.

But here I am, 6 months post moving my entire life to a place that was completely foreign and unfamiliar - still standing! Through this, I have learned so much, and have grown a ton. Going outside of your comfort zone can be incredibly challenging and painful, but how can we expect ourselves to grow if we aren’t willing to take the first step?

Going back to my point earlier, a lot of the moments I have captured over the last few months have been while I was alone. But even in those moments of loneliness, when all I was wishing for was to be around the people that understood me, there was still beauty to be captured.

Reality can often be dictated by our biased perspective. So instead of thinking of all the ways my life has changed, it doesn’t mean those changes are a bad thing. They just make life look different.

So, I encourage you, if you are going through something similar, just know you are not alone, and sometimes you just need to shift your perspective and focus on the beauty that simple quiet moments can bring.

With love,

just a chefs daughter