Will the real Lauren Short please stand up?

Now that I have been 27 for a month now I have noticed a shift and change in my personal and professional life.  The main motto that I have been giving myself and I give other people is “You Do You”.

While this may seem selfish, it can also be quite liberating and something that I have been needing to do after the last few months.  A couple post previous to this one I talked about expectations and intentions.  It was about how I am choosing to surround myself with people that I want to be around and not who I feel obligated to spend my time with. 

Another thing that is interesting is that I have been spending a lot of time alone, either watching Netflix, playing my guitar or working freelance on a project for a friend (more info to come on that in a bit!).  While this is mostly because since moving to a studio and not living with roommates anymore, I have had to adjust my budget a little bit.  So that means, no going out, eating out or extra shopping or activities as much as I used to.  While this has been a really difficult shift, I think it has been a test for me to see if I can learn to be alone and work on things that give me life.

The quote above is something that my mother told me over a year ago when I felt really lost and not quite sure where to go.  So recently my friend Katey who I used to work with when I worked at the Apple Store 3 years ago approached me about something that she needed help with.  She started a new podcast community with about 6 other girls called “Bitch TeamAlpha”.  While the name might be off-putting to some, it’s a really great movement.  This podcast community covers everything in nerd culture from a women’s perspective. You should check out the website and subscribe to the podcast to know more!

The thing that Katey asked me was to be their Media & PR person.  I was ecstatic that I was even asked! Since there was a shift in my work situation and I no longer work in marketing I wasn’t feeling that I wasn’t getting the most out of my education that I just finished in March.

So now I get to do something I love. To be able to own strategy and marketing for an awesome brand has been something that I have always wanted to do.  Not only that, but being able to grow a brand and community from the ground up.  It’s an exciting time for me.

I have come to the realization lately that I have put way to many expectations on the people around me.  Expectations of my job and what I deserve, of friends and various other things that I won’t name. . These expectations have come to make me forget who I am and have caused me to go into a “depression”. I don’t think that we realize how much we put expectations out into the world and how much they can keep us from being who we really are.

A little more background, this past June I was promoted to the Marketing Department at my company as a coordinator supporting a couple of the brands that we own and operate aside from working with our corporate clients.  I was thrilled and excited to take on this role as I was still in school finishing up my Graduate Certificate in Marketing.  It was GREAT hands-on knowledge while I was getting my degree.   I expected to be in this role for a while and move up within the organization, I was even working with my supervisor to do so. Some things happened within the company over the last 4-5 months and in the middle of some major layoffs, my position was eliminated.  BUT they moved me back to a Sales Operations role.  I will say that I am VERY thankful for employment in a time where it is still tough to get a job still. But it’s hard to be going one way in your career and then be kind of thrown back to where you started. I feel like I am behind. So it’s frustrating and that is one pillar of what has cause my “depression”.  

Another is my expectations of a place to live.

Over the course of the last month or so I have been looking for a new place to live. One roommate is relocating out of state to LA and the other is moving in with another friend. While I am trying to maintain these relationships I found myself depressed and lost and not knowing where I was going to live. Not an uncommon feeling that I had about a year ago. I thought I would have been in this living situation for at least more than one year. But here I am again, moving. This will be 4^th move in 3 years of living in Seattle. I can’t say that I have gotten any better at moving. I only get more frustrated. But I can say that I found  one bedroom apartment by myself only a half a mile from where I live currently. So that was a HUGE relief and I think helped bring me out of my funk.  

Now, onto my relationships.

I have recently been working on the need for expectations in certain relationships in my life.  I am not sure where this came from over the course of the past few years. But I have been noticing that I have them and they are not healthy.  My therapist FINALLY said to me “The moment you let go of those expectations that you have of other people, is when you will truly be free and in the moment.”   She gets me EVERY time!  So now I am working on intention.  I am going to be intentional about my relationships with people. If someone is irreplaceable in my life, that is who I am choosing to be around and let them know that.  Since I have been doing that, I have found that it has been slightly easier to let go which is something that I still struggle with.

Hoping to work on this more throughout the next few months to dig myself out of this down in my life. I can only go up and I am feeling it.