Times they are a-changin'... and changin' and changin'

I'm a millennial. Technically, by my birth year, I'd be the tail end of the Gen Xers, but, characteristically, I'm thoroughly, sometimes painfully, a Millennial. I've read a lot about millennials recently, especially about the emerging adults. It is simulateously disturbing and relieving to be so... typical? In the past ten years, I:

• dreamed of living in Ireland for a year, only to never go


• graduated from college


• got married, divorced (and annulled, for anyone who's keeping track) and married again


• lived at twelve different addresses in four different states


• had six different jobs. Just counting the post-college jobs, not including short-term, contracted or consulting positions


• started grad school. Twice. (And will finish. Once. This year.)


• drove thousands of miles on spur of the moment road trips, wrote hundreds of thousands words, drank too much coffee to even imagine

But I've had the same phone number.

Change is constant. In general, it doesn't bother me. It's not always easy, but I generally can roll with the punches. In fact, I'm so used to change that I've come to expect it.

What I've come to realize this Lent is that I get bored easily. Very easily. I barely begin new adventures before I start to wonder, "What's next?" Hell, I write blog posts and before they're edited, I've moved on to the next one, the next idea, the next...

My brain floods with ideas at times, faster than I can even comprehend them. I get excited, the ideas rush out of my brain faster than my mouth or fingers can move to communicate them to someone else... and I've completely overwhelmed people, just trying to get enough out of my head that I can focus! I'm naturally curious, I like learning new things and experiencing new places, and I'm highly inclined to flights of fancy... but there's something to be said about discipline. It's tremendously difficult for me to just. be. still. And it's not just because I need to switch to decaf... This is the new adventure. To be still. To slow down long enough to look around. To be patient, with myself and others. To be satisfied. So far, it's not been easy. Next? The views expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.