Dear Andy

Dear Andy,

You already know this, but your wife and I go way back. We met when we were 4 and 5 and have been like sisters ever since. I've had the beautiful and rare opportunity to experience life with her -- needless to say, I've always wanted the best for Kaitlyn.

You came into my life in such a flash, and we didn't even meet until after you'd put an engagement ring on my friend's finger. I was disappointed there wasn't more time for us to get acquainted before the wedding, but I could see the spark you brought to Kaitlyn's life, and trusted her decision to make you "the one". I'll always remember your wedding day as one of the happiest days of my life. Tears of joy came to my eyes as I stood among my sisters and watched you promise to love my friend for the rest of your days.

I expected you to have so much more time together. I expected more Christmas cards; more hayrides; more board games; more babies. I pictured you, old and gray, sitting on a front porch with Kaitlyn, watching your grandchildren play, and reminiscing on a lifetime of happy memories.

While I struggle to find the right words to comfort the ones you left behind, I know the words I would say to you if I had the chance: thank you. Thank you for the joy and laughter you brought into this family. Thank you for loving my Kaitlyn, and for giving us sweet Jakey. I promise to look after them; I promise you will live on through our stories, and that you will never be forgotten.
❤

Checkpoint #1

...so there I sat, a needle in one arm, ice pack wrapped around the other, fighting back tears and wondering, “what am I doing here?”

If you aren’t one of the people in my life who already knows this story, I’ll start near the beginning:

Last summer I was cast in a play with a regional theatre company, playing a character who is on stage for the second half of the second act. Not my greatest role, but as we all know, “there are no small parts, just small actors”, so I was making the most of it. At the opening night party I was asked by one of the leads why I had chosen a career in marketing, and he told me that I could “do this professionally” if I wanted to.

Here’s the thing… I’ve always wanted to. The place I feel most myself - most alive - is on a stage. But when it came time to pick a college degree, my parents’ rule was that it would “have to result in a job with health insurance”, so theatre was out of the question. I remember the conversation with my guidance counselor went a little something like this:

“What do you like to do?”

“I... like peopl-”

“Have you considered a degree in communications?”

Fast forward a handful years and there I was with my shiny bachelor’s degree from The Roy H Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. (Don’t get me wrong, I was all about this decision at the time. Sometime during my freshman year I’d come in contact with enough of the theatre students to decide that theatre kids are truly obnoxious and I wasn’t really like them. I probably wouldn’t have been happy in the long-run. I made the right decision. I’m going to have a great career and a great life. I’m level-headed and driven and awesome and THIS IS RIGHT!)

Thanks to the “college level” [huge air-quotes here] classes I’d taken in high school, I started at Ithaca with 38 gen-ed credits and earned my bachelor’s degree in seven semesters (including a semester abroad). Within a month of graduating, I was hired at a marketing agency, and continued to work in my field (minus one tiny, insignificant period when I was out of work for being… “let go” [air-quotes also being used here]) My next goal was to be debt-free by 25, which I achieved when I paid my final bills the day before my birthday last year. Then I started making comments like this:

“Once you pay for your degree, you don’t have to use it anymore, right?”

(Oh hey there, thinly-veiled declaration of dissatisfaction!)

So to make sure you’re keeping up, the timeline goes like this:

May 2016: Casey achieves debt-free status

September 2016: Casey starts to actually consider pursuing professional acting career

October 2016: Seattle Talent comes to Fort Collins

What is Seattle Talent? Well, according to their website:

“Seattle Talent has been the premier Management, Development, and Placement Facility in the Northwest since 1999. Our young Actors, Models, and Singers have appeared in network shows such as How I Met Your Mother, American Idol, Criminal Minds, Scrubs, The Office, CSI, and The Middle. Cable favorites like Disney’s Suite Life, Pair of Kings, Zeke and Luther, Shake It Up, the Nickelodeon hits iCarly,Power Rangers, SchoolGyrls, Zoey 101…”

You get the picture.

Following a successful series of auditions, I was offered a place on the agency’s team at the 2017 IMTA NYC competition in July. What does that mean? (I’m so grateful for “About Us” tabs on websites…)

“The International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) is a professional association of the finest and most successful modeling and talent training centers in the world. Since 1987, IMTA has become the recognized leader in putting new faces in front of the people whose business it is to identify the next rising star or supermodel. An impressive, and constantly growing, list of people who were first seen at IMTA conventions are now seen in magazines, TV, movies and fashion shows.

IMTA produces multiple week-long conventions, including one in New York and Los Angeles, consisting of modeling, acting, singing, songwriting and dancing competitions. Hundreds of fashion and talent agents, personal managers, casting directors, network representatives and music producers judge IMTA competitions while searching for new models, actors, singers and dancers to work in the fashion and entertainment industries.”

So I left my job at the end of the year. Not because I was leaving town, or because I was moments away from my big break, but because I knew it was time to close the door on that chapter. A decision that was simultaneously terrifying and incredibly exciting to make.

In an attempt not to completely drain my savings account between now and whatever comes after July, I work part-time as a nanny and a receptionist at a local salon. For a hot second (read: 2 weeks) I worked as a hostess at a restaurant in Old Town, but I just cannot deal with a schedule that comes out one week at a time. For the most part, I am very happy with my decision, but working less than 30 hours a week at just-above minimum wage isn’t exactly making ends meet.

Enter my latest solution: BioLife Plasma Services. Apparently a healthy adult can “donate” (aka: sell) plasma twice a week. For $70, I was willing to sit with a needle in my arm for 3-ish hours per week. Not that bad, right?

Turns out there’s this thing that can happen called hematomas (don’t Google-image it) where the returning red blood cells don’t go neatly back into your vein, but start to collect in the tissue surrounding the insertion site. It’s pretty alarming to look down at your arm and notice it’s starting to inflate, à la Violet Beauregarde, but instead of blueberry juice it’s BLOOD!!! Okay, it wasn’t that extreme, but it does hurt. If I wanted full compensation, we had to finish with the other arm. (According to the phlebotomist, I’m lucky to have such good veins. I’ll add it to the resume…)

SO now that I’ve caught you up… there I sat, a needle in one arm, ice pack wrapped around the other, fighting back tears and wondering, “what am I doing here?”

As a person with so many friends who DID get degrees in the fine arts, I’ve been more than a little hesitant to announce my new life plan. WHO AM I to think that I have what it takes to “make it” in this industry, when I personally know so many people who have already been traveling down this road for years? It seems so grossly arrogant, like those people who drive to the end of the closing lane and then try to cut-off someone who was playing by the rules all along. When that happens, I’m the person who goes “NOT TODAY, BUDDY!” and blatantly refuses to honor that jerk’s blinker.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m that jerk. I have no illusions that this is going to be easy… I just didn’t expect to reach my first checkpoint so soon. By checkpoint I mean, “opportunity to reevaluate what I want and decide if it’s still worth it”.

In that moment, when you can’t move either arm, and you just want to go home, but you need money to get from point A to point B in life… it definitely feels like a checkpoint. I know I’m a smart, resourceful woman and there are many other ways to make a little cash. I also know that hematomas in uncommon and I’m unlikely to experience it again. I’m just saying that sometimes, when you’re crying alone in your car and you don’t want to call your parents and hear them get all parenty, it feels like a good moment to reflect.

For the record, I did eventually call my parents. I called them after I sat in an empty parking lot eating a 7-Eleven apple fritter in the dark. They graciously agreed not to get all parenty. They let me blubber for a while until I pulled myself together and then we talked about the possibility of World War 3 and that millions of people throughout history never got the chance to follow their dreams. Ya know, really uplifting stuff.

I do feel better about my evening now that I’ve written a full 3 pages on Google Docs. I was supposed to meet up with a guy I met on Bumble (woo hoo “dating” in 2017), but those plans went out the window as soon as I traded a shower for a convenience store donut. In the long run, I’d say this was a better use of my night. I can already see myself recounting this tale to Ellen as I sit across from her in those glorious white chairs. It’s gonna happen.

Perceptions of Adulthood

This topic has been weighing on me today, and since I’ve been nagged repeatedly (by parties who shall remain nameless) (Andrea) to blog again… here you go, world.

Dad always told us that we would be adults once he and Mom could stop paying to support us. If all goes to plan, after this month I will be completely, 100% independent. I am more than grateful for the financial support my parents have provided, and I couldn’t really have swung this crazy cross-country life shift without them. Let’s be real – I drove off into the sunset and flung my future to the wind, without any battle plan. I can’t believe how fortunate I am to have gotten to this point in just over a month. Soon, every expense in my life will be paid with the money I earn at my grownup job – which is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.

Let’s talk about my grownup job for a minute. As you may know, I am now the Marketing Manager for Miramont Lifestyle Fitness…but most of you probably have no clue what that entails. Turns out I’m the head of the whole marketing department, overseeing two graphic designers, and coordinating all internal and external marketing efforts for the entire 4-facility company (soon to be 5-facility in 2015). We are the top-of-the-line fitness club in Fort Collins, with over 22,000 members; each paying top-dollar for the privilege… and these people trust me not to screw it up. Not just “not screw it up”, but improve it. This is what they pay me to do! For the first time since graduating from Ithaca, I wake up each morning filled with pure joy, just knowing that I get to go to a job I love. 

So my career is taking off and my life is actually taking shape out here in beautiful Colorado. I can see myself living out here for a long, long time. Which makes me wonder… what’s next?

Maybe I’m a little behind the eight ball since the only serious relationship I’ve had turned out to be a complete train wreck, but who said we were old enough to get married? At the company picnic last week, several people asked me where my family was. Not my “family” as in the people who share my blood and raised me, but my “family” as in one who put a ring on it and those who came out of my uterus. I laughed each time the question was posed because it just seems PREPOSTEROUS. Do I really seem old enough to be responsible for another human life? Because I’m literally going to go home after this, jump on the trampoline with my roommates and giggle like a 12 year old.

I work with a lot of women, many of whom I would consider my peers, EXCEPT for the chunky diamonds hanging off their left hands. I can actually count on one hand the number of people I work with who are not engaged or married. Granted, we all work for a fitness center, so they’re all total 10s and OF COURSE someone had to lock them down, but it does make me wonder… when is this going to happen to me?

In my ridiculous timeline of life (when I figured everyone died in their sleep at 100), I figured I’d get married around age 25 – after dating my chosen man for 2-3 years. WELP, that puts me right on schedule for meeting Mr. Right any day now. Is your mind blown? Because mine sure is.

Don’t worry - I’m not going to start looking at rings the moment I get a third date… (I won’t actually bother looking at all – Andrea knows exactly how to guide my future man toward the perfect Casey-will-you-marry-me selection) but it dawned on me that we’re approaching the second act. (Maybe we’re already there? I can’t be sure – intermission was fuzzy) This may be the first time I’ve had that thought without going into the fetal position and reaching for a juice box. Every day I am living a life of my own creation, and suddenly…

Being an adult doesn't seem so scary.

"So, what brings you to Fort Collins?"

Pretty much everyone I've talked to during the past 2 weeks has been a complete stranger. This means I get to (have to) explain myself over and over and over... eventually they always come to the same question:

"So, what brings you to Fort Collins?"

And then I create some combo of the following phrases:

• My roommates will be grad students at CSU
• The job market is way better (which has yet to be proven)
• I needed a new adventure

"Oh wow, that's really brave."

...brave? I mean, I'm no vampire slayer (any guesses what my latest Netflix binge has been?), but thanks for noticing. 

Two weeks didn't sound like a long time when I found out that's how long I'd be out here alone, but it has been quite the experience. Sure, Tyler was here to help me move in, and then I spent my first weekend in Denver with Kursten, but it has been me, myself, and I since last Monday.

I've had several run-ins with my shoulder guys this week. For those of you living without a working knowedge of Emporer's New Groove references (and I use the term "living" loosely here), this means that those little voices inside my head have been at war in my brain. 

"You need to get out there and experience life!"
"Stay inside and lock the doors!"
"Over 300 days of sunshine - go bask in it!"
"Netflix!"
"At least clean something"
"Netflix!"

After spending Sunday as a hermit crab, I decided to sign up for a guided nature hike on Monday morning, thinking it could be a way to meet people. When I woke up this morning, it occurred to me that 9:00am on a Monday is not when young professional adults go on hikes - they're at work, contributing to society. Oops. Despite my shoulder devil coaxing me to forget it and stay home, I grabbed my waterbottle and headed out. 

Sure, I spent the morning hiking with the chattiest 70-year-old man I've ever encountered. Thankfully he couldn't keep up, so I only had to endure his ramblings when our guide decided to wait. Sure, the guide was a middle-aged woman, and not the strapping young nature man I'd envisioned, but she was good for conversation and her husband used to live in Rochester! For whatever reason, I have a lot of experience making small talk with old people - and they're always the least intimidating option. 

After a quick stop at the library for a new book (which I will make myself read in the park) and an ice cream cone (because I'm an adult and I can have ice cream for lunch if I wanna and this is absolutely how my mother raised me), I returned home - triumphant in my comfort-zone-breaking-ness. 

Am I on a solo backpacking trip through South America? No
Am I living in hostels and working odd jobs in Europe? No
Have I landed my dream job with fabulous benefits? No
But I'm out here and I'm living life the best I can... and maybe that's brave after all.         

10%

I’m standing in my kitchen eating store-brand fruit cocktail right out of the can, wondering what to do with my life. I told people I might start blogging again… I guess now is as good a time as any. 

Today marks my official one-week Colorado-versary (even though technically I didn’t move into our place in Fort Collins until Wednesday), and this is the first day I’ve spent completely alone in… maybe forever. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever spent so many consecutive hours alone. I don’t know why anyone would choose to live this way – it kinda sucks. Thankfully this is a temporary state of crushing loneliness because Andrea and Rob will move in next week. Still, that’s over a week from now, which means I’ve only managed to make it through less than 10% of my sentence. Maybe it’ll get better. Maybe I’ll make friends with the little gray mouse I watched scamper across the kitchen floor yesterday. 

I had an informational interview this afternoon with an agency in town. The lady was nice enough, and provided a sizeable list of local agencies to try… although my wavering confidence pretty much shattered when she asked: “What are you going to do if none of these work out?” WOW. Uhhhhhh…. I guess I’ll just start working the street corner near the 7-Eleven across from the empty lot next to my house. THANKS FOR ASKING. 

After retrieving my car from the unfamiliar parking garage, I headed for the grocery store. After selecting a cart, I proceeded to work my way down aisle-by-aisle, hoping that eventually I wouldn’t feel like crying. That plan actually worked pretty well. Which means, if I’m lucky, I’ll only have cried during one grocery expedition this month! 

I am now the proud owner of a King Soopers SOOPER CARD. It’s not Wegmans, but it’ll do. At least their store-brand fruit cocktail is decent. Because, ya know, that’s really how you judge quality. 

Things out here really aren’t as bad as they seem right now. Despite the mouse visitor/resident, I’m starting to feel comfortable in my new surroundings. Most of the windows have curtains, which is good because for the past two days my house has been surrounded by landscapers. At least by the time I have roommates we might have a nice backyard to play in. 

Well, my can is empty, so I guess I’ll wrap it up. If you’ve actually managed to read this entire post, know that I am doing just fine out West, and things will come together soon. Thank goodness for Netflix.