Life isn’t settling down, but it is definitely less crazy than it has been. I know I haven’t written on here in a while, but if you follow me on other social media platforms, you should have picked up from context clues that I’ve been doing pretty well.

In the past six months, I think I’ve changed more quickly than I have in the past 21 years. And it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

I lost people, spent too much money, developed new habits, cried over boys, and did my best to keep track of my goals.

At the same time, I gained even better people, lifelong people. I spent money on things that mattered to me, like trips, nights out with friends, and traveling. I developed habits that made me who I was. I cried over boys who taught me who I didn’t want to be. And I made better, even bigger goals for myself.

This has been the most monumental year for me without a doubt, and it’s made all the difference. There will be the annual “what I learned post”, but for now, here’s what my life has been like in the last few months.

I’m going to start by just putting it out there, but over the summer my boyfriend of two and a half years and I separated. It really isn’t something I was hiding or keeping secret, as it would be very obvious for someone inquiring about the subject. I just believe in keeping your business undisclosed, especially in matters that involve other people. Therefore, I have nothing to comment or state about this topic, but this is the beginning of the timeline.

Once I was on my own for the first time truly ever (I had been in and out of a relationship for most of my teenage life), it opened my eyes to the people in my college town. There was so much going on, so much life and energy outside of everything I’d known with my blinders on for the past two years.

Enter my best friend.

Lauren and I met through work, and quickly gathered that we had no other choice but to become friends. We had the same taste in music, same style of fashion, same outlook on the necessity of men at this time, and also looked eerily similar. And once you have a best friend, everything social becomes easy. We started going downtown, attending parties, flirting our way through bars, and made even more friends along the way.

It was only after meeting Lauren and my friend group that I realized my introverted, quiet, and often uptight personality may not actually have been me… it was the people I surrounded myself with.

My brother, a guy who knows my personality better than anyone else, said something to me when I came home for winter break. “You’re a lot of fun now, Maddie. You know how to laugh at yourself.” This meant a lot to me, because for years I thought that I had a sharp side, quickly angered by snide comments like this from my brothers. And yet, I now could recognize this was genuine, and for the first time in a while I understood that this new person I had become was so much better than the girl I thought I used to be. I can now laugh at how enjoyable and funny life is now, mostly because of my incredibly humorous friends.

I relearned how to have fun through these people, because I can confidently say I would now drop anything I was doing to go lay on a couch and watch funny videos with my friends on a Wednesday at 10 p.m.

Or go to drag night downtown. Or take self-timer photos that we can never recreate. Or watch our shoes stick to floors at frat parties. Or roll down all the windows in an Uber to avoid hurling. Or have a little friendly competition to see who can get the most numbers at the bar. Or drive to McDonald’s to eat some fries at midnight.

In addition to this newfound life of college fun, I got a new roommate who changed my life for the better. Megan, who is a freshman at KU, likes to look at college the way you see it in the movies, and taught me how to wear those rose-colored glasses too. Boys, parties, getting home after 2 a.m., and trying to make it to morning classes became our lifestyle. Although some of my readers may frown upon this, you have to understand that it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, because I wanted that life for so long.

This year was my second chance at college, and if I hadn’t gotten to experience it, I just know I would have gone off the deep end in my mid-twenties seeking the thrills of nightlife in a young and restless town.

While I am still experimenting and looking for a happy medium, sometimes the only way to realize what you want is to experience what you don’t. This goes for partying, men, and maintaining life in a vibrant social scene.

Despite all of this, I still made major moves to improve myself, my career, and my lifestyle. I became the president of an organization I am so passionate about, and spent the semester planning events, leading meetings, and meeting new members. I took classes that were solely based around my areas of interest in college, which benefitted me greatly in retrospect of planning my career.

Speaking of planning careers, I also started a podcast with Lauren. This is where the majority of my writing time went, and I don’t regret a minute of it. We started this podcast knowing that we were both funny and entertaining people, but when you put us together in a room with a microphone, we turn into absolute comedians who deserve their own Netflix special. The podcast is about our lives as college students, and features our thoughts and feelings on school, friends, work, parties, weekend shenanigans, music, and our most entertaining topic, men. The therapeutic quality of podcasting is underrated, as we have both discovered.

Overall, to summarize the main point of this post, I haven’t gotten around to writing recently because I was too busy out in the real world discovering who I am. And I can proudly say that I really like who I am becoming, and just know that in the next year it’s only going to get better. When I look in the mirror, I recognize a person that’s been waiting to be found for years, and yet see a girl I am still meeting every morning.

The happiest I’ve ever been,

Madeleine