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I haven't blogged in quite awhile. In fact, it has almost been an entire year since I wrote about measuring my life in semesters and reminisced about my illustrious college experience. A few things have remained consistent - I still maintain that my college years were the best of my life, I still have a love/hate relationship with Iowa City, and I am still more than a bit quirky - but more things have changed since I was the wide-eyed, almost-graduate walking across the stage after hearing a terrible graduation speech and sharing the event with the damn College of Business students.

For starters, I have been living in Des Moines for almost a year now. I commonly tell people I am living the dream because it usually elicits a chuckle or an appreciative smile, but truthfully I am living the reality of most people my age. I live with my parents, I fight with my parents, I am restless, and I am faking my way through a few jobs so I can make money to pay off my debts. And by "pay off my debts," I really mean "go out with those other people my age I referenced and drink beer and pretend that we've all never been happier."

Ok, that was a little dramatic. I actually am quite happy. Life treats me well, and I think I treat life well. I think this particularly when a few of my married friends tell me they live vicariously through me. I have a secret hypothesis that they say this only to make me feel better about some of my terrible life choices. Either way, life isn't perfect, and it's certainly not static, but what 20-something truly believes or wants that? I mean, isn't that the beauty of your 20s? You are the most idealistic you'll ever be and this means you can really pursue all that life has to afford. When something doesn't work out, a 20-something moves on to the next thing. We're malleable, we're flexible, we're the best kind of non-committed.

Ok, stop there.

When I started typing this blog entry, I didn't intend for it to be monumental or all that great, really (and I obviously succeeded at doing neither). In fact, I just wanted to breeze over the fact that it's been a year since I contributed to the blogosphere and move on to my original purpose behind digging up my username and password. So, we'll just move on, shall we?

As I mentioned, I work a few jobs. This sounds more taxing than it really is, but we'll just leave it at that so whoever reads this will think I am truly deserving of all the things that I want because I work so hard. With that in mind, one of my jobs can be described as a rollercoaster. For once, this isn't because it's a dramatic thing, but rather because what I do depends on a multitude of factors. So, I will go through phases of being ridiculously busy and yet spend hours doing nothing but doodling, surfing the web, and plotting ways to save the world. During one of these "valleys" today, I started free-writing. It came out in a Carrie Bradshaw-esque way, probably because I watched a lot of "Sex and the City" over Thanksgiving Break. I decided to post it because otherwise it will be forever lost on the hard drive of my computer, and I will read it sometime in the future and have no context for what I was thinking. So, without futher adu (and there was a lot of freaking adu leading up to this point), here is my SATC column. Oh, and no, it's not about me. It truly is about a friend of mine, so just stop trying to be clever and figure out the supposed analogies. It's just a waste of your brain's synopses.

“This Is Bullshit!”

By: Carrie Bradshaw (a.k.a. Kelli Russell)

I have a friend who met a guy at work a few months ago. After a flirtatious banter and a carefully orchestrated “asking for the phone number,” they met up for drinks one night and hit it off. The days following were a whirlwind of cute texts, cuter kisses, and the flutter-of-the-heart feeling that leaves you breathless but with oxygen the last thing on your mind.

Sometimes these stories end well, and you have relationships form. Sometimes both parties are content with the affair becoming one to remember, and nothing more. And still yet, sometimes the stories end before they even have a chance to move beyond the title page. But through the countless situations I or someone I know have been through, despite the numerous times we’ve faced ourselves in the mirror after being knocked off our feet, and the harsh conversations we've drunkenly had alone or in dialogue, it just never seems to stick. It seems like the only thing that has truly ingrained itself into our minds is the idea that we should give selflessly and wait with open arms for the moment when someone needs us. I know we're not alone in this morally charged, flawed character trait. But what I have noticed is that more often than the not, the one who winds up standing alone is the woman, as intelligent, discerning, real-world as she may be.

My friend is one such woman. Admittedly there is always fault with each member of a relationship; we are not debating perfection here, after all. But what happens when the fault is that you cared too much, and gave too willingly? When did it become a bad thing to embrace life and feel all the intensities it has to offer? At what point do our actions shift from being supportive and patient, to the designation that we’re being walked all over? And when should we toss aside the conventions we’ve been taught about the Golden Rule and actually put ourselves first, having the guts to say, “this is bullshit!”

I may not know the answer to those non-rhetorical questions. In fact, I know I don't. But I think it does have some merit. There must be a thin line between being kind and patient about a situation, and the situation really being one where you're getting walked all over. In fact, just today I was listening to a co-worker tell me why their unemployment will really be the end of their happiness (obviously, this person doesn't understand that they are 25, and thus still in the "idealist, shrug it off" stage of life). They eventually deduced that the worst possible scenario would be to live at home with their parents and work for their dad in a field that isn't related to their college degree.

Oh, hi, did you just describe my life?

When I pointed this out to this person, they informed me that it's different because they have a more expensive degree (hey, nobody held you at gunpoint and made you go to Drake) and because it is also a higher degree than my bachelor's, it is even more difficult to work some remedial.

Now, I will concede that everything that person said is factual. They do have more debt than I do because they did attend a private university. They did get a degree above a BA/BS, so they are, technically, "higher educated" than I. And I'll even give them that it may be more difficult to go back and work for a parent with that higher degree, simply because I don't have the ability to empathize with that because I am not in the same situation. But my question is, when does being a good person by listening and empathizing with someone diverge into allowing myself to be offended and say "hey, asshole, why can't we just cooperatively curse the economy and go get a beer instead of split hairs about who has it worse?"

I pride myself on knowing things and constantly learning, but I will never claim to know everything. But as live moves on, and as I enjoy the last 6.5 years of my twenties, I know I'll probably still be too nice, too forgiving, and too patient with people who are actually quite undeserving. But that's ok. What is idealism without the Golden Rule, anyway?