Hello all!

So this is some exciting news – this blog post accompanies my latest podcast episode! That’s right! Ya girl is finally off a hiatus – no promises for how long. But recording the episode yesterday reminded me how much I love and miss recording and editing, so I don’t know, maybe it won’t be on hiatus anymore.

Sidenote, I still need to publish the blog post from episode 2, so I’ll be doing that shortly as well.

Last week, I continued watching Lizzie McGuire, because why not? Those of you who have watched the show will know which episode I’m talking about, but Gordo is trying to figure out when he’s going to go from feeling like a boy into a man. The following scene is between Lizzie and her dad where she’s telling him that the feeling of being an adult/grown up hasn’t kicked in yet.

“Gordo still feels like a kid” 

“Yeah. I remember what that feels like … It feels light. You know like, eating an ice cream cone and it’s dripping down the side of your hand, or you’re playing baseball on the street and the sun’s about to set, or staying up late just because it’s fun”

“Why else would you stay up late?”

“[chuckles] Because it’s the only time you have to eat your dinner, or pay your bills, or do your laundry. But it’s okay, because by the time you get to go to sleep, you really feel like you accomplished something, for yourself, and for your family. It’s a nice feeling”

Lizzie McGuire, Season 1, Episode 31, Gordo’s Bar Mitzvah

And that scene made me really nostalgic and I basically haven’t stopped being nostalgic since last week. To the point where I’m pretty much concerned why my baseline mood is this sad nostalgia.

But regardless, it unlocked a part of my childhood that I hadn’t thought about for quite some time. It reminded me about being a kid and getting two pages of homework a night, and then playing with my friends for hours, and going to different sports practices, and dance class, and doing nothing on the weekends besides sleeping in and playing computer games like Freddie Fish, Putt Putt, and Treasure Mountain.

As a kid, when I wasn’t at school and I wasn’t doing homework, then I did not think about school ONCE. My sole goal after school was to have fun and to relax. And somewhere along the way, all of that changed. My life became all about school and all about work all the time.

I will say, I think the pandemic helped to change that. At first it was difficult because my sanctuary and my workplace was the same place, and all the professors gave triple the work they normally did, and I didn’t even have the metro to sit in and daydream for 3 hours a day. So, I had to create other breaks and other boundaries – setting only specific times during the day to work, making sure that I would go on walks, and my family and I started playing a lot more board games together and watching a lot more shows and movies together! In a way, the pandemic brought us all a little closer.

Now the pandemic is, hopefully, winding down, and I want to keep that going. I’ll still work hard at work, and that means doing work even after I come home and sometimes on the weekends too, but since I have the luxury of living a well-balanced life, why shouldn’t I pretend I’m 6 years old and selling lemonade, or 10 years old and going around the neighborhood with my brother on our Razor scooters, or 15 and talking on the phone with my friend for hours at a time even though we just spent the whole day in high school together? 

I’ve been talking a lot with my friends about the nostalgia of childhood, and how being in your 20s makes you feel like every decision you make impacts the rest of your life. But when we were kids, we would make a decision and then if it wasn’t the right one, then we’d apologize, learn from our mistakes, and then move on. But what if we forget about all that and do things that make us happy, and build our life outside of work and our jobs and our career… then maybe we’d all be a little happier because of it

Some may disagree with me, and say that early on in our careers, we need to put everything we have into our job and/or school. People value different things, and that’s fine.

I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of person that works 22 hour days every day, one because I don’t do well on less than 4 hours of sleep a night, but also because there are so many other things that I get to experience in life that are outside the walls of my office and beyond my computer.  

But when I think about my life now, I think about being a law clerk, being a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a confidant. I think of the shows that I watch on Netflix and the books I read on my deck when the sun is shining and I don’t have a care in the world. I think about the things I do to procrastinate studying, the board games I like to play, and the places I like to walk and visit. I think about the coffee shops I like to go to when I want to hang out by myself, and I think about the smell of the fresh fruit and vegetables at the farmer’s market I like to frequent on the weekends. I think about those interactions with friends that instantly put you in a great mood, and I think about those weekends spent with loved ones where you don’t even know where the time went. I think about this blog and sharing my podcast with all of you just because I want to! 

I’m no role model for creating a well-balanced life but if you can

1. Create a schedule and stick to it
2. Allocate time to stress (“planned worry time”) and allocate time to relax
3. Take care of your health
4. Spend time with your loved ones
5. Get a few hobbies

Then I think life will be alright and our 20s will be a little easier 🙂

Check out all this and more, on my latest episode of  Traversing the Twenties.

Let me know about what tips work for you for creating a well-balanced life, what kind of hobbies you have, and how you’re spending your 20s! 🙂

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

If you liked this post and want to go through 2022 with me, then please click the follow or subscribe button! Feel free to connect with me through this platform, twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music, or or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! If you have any suggestions for blog posts or anything you’d like me to write about, please let me know  🙂❤