Weddings and Babies. Or, A Treatise On Freedom.

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Every day for the past week, it seems like someone I know has either announced that they’re engaged or that they’re pregnant. A girl I went to youth group with in high school just had her third baby. My middle school arch-nemesis just got engaged. A boy I sort-of dated four years ago is expecting a baby with his wife. The amount of baby- and wedding-related news in my Facebook news feed is mind-boggling.

It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t weirded out by all of it. Two years ago, if someone my age was getting married or having a baby, they were considered young. But now, at the ripe old age of twenty-four, it’s not simply socially acceptable, it’s normal. And when a life milestone of that magnitude becomes normal for a person your age, you can’t help but compare yourself to those who are collecting those milestones like pirate’s booty when you yourself don’t even have a map. Perhaps that sounds like a plea for pity, but it’s not, I promise: while I sometimes feel pangs of envy at other people’s engagements and pregnancies, I mostly feel like my life is more awesome for not having those things for myself.

I think what weirds me out the most is that if things had happened only slightly differently, that could have been me. I could be celebrating my first wedding anniversary this year, or I could be gestating a colloquial bun in my oven. And two years ago, that was exactly what I wanted! It just shocks me how much my dreams have changed since then: where I once saw a wedding and a husband and children, I now see travel and an advanced degree and the potential for a creatively satisfying career and freedom.

Does that sound selfish? Maybe it is. But I’m still going to call it freedom. Because this will be the only time in my life that I can move to Europe, or anywhere else in the world, without having to answer to anyone else. This will be the only time in my life where I can spend my money on whatever stupid thing I want because it’s my money and no one else’s. This will be the only time in my life where my identity is wholly my own, where I can be Kendall Goodwin without also being someone’s wife or someone’s mom. And I like all of that. I like being independent and I like doing things that I want to do and I like knowing that I’ll always be on time, and I want to hang on to that until I’m good and ready to let go because I know I will never have more freedom than I have right now. I want my twenties to be a monument to awesomeness, and I want to experience every adventure I dream of before my life is no longer just about me anymore. If I have kids, I want to have great stories to tell them, and I want them to be in disbelief that their lame mom could have done so many cool things. I want to wake up when I’m thirty-five and feel satisfied with my life instead of regretful at the things I didn’t get around to.

I don’t scoff at anyone my age who chooses to get married or have kids, and I don’t pity them either. I bet their lives are wonderful and miraculous in a way that I couldn’t possibly understand, but I also know that, at this point in my life, I’m not prepared to understand it. I’d probably like to get married someday, and the jury is still out on having children, but it’s all a long way off. So until then, here’s to not regretting what I didn’t do in my twenties.

Wild Geese.

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You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

From Above.

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I saw this video on Things Organized Neatly the other day and was very quickly in a state of deep swoon. Wes Anderson has such a distinct filmmaking style, and overhead shots of people doing things with their hands are like one of his signature moves. There’s so much attention to detail in these shots and so much that can be conveyed without words or even facial expressions, it kind of blows my mind. It seems like forever since Wes Anderson has released a film, so it was very good news to hear that his newest, Moonrise Kingdom, is set for release this year. It looks amazing and I can’t wait to see it!

Harry Potter Recap: Books 5-7.

In December, I read the first book in the Harry Potter series. In the month of January, I read books 2 through 4. And now, midway through February, I’ve completed the seven part series. I literally had difficulty putting these books down, sometimes (I hate to admit) foregoing eating or taking a shower just to read one more chapter, and once I had finished book 5, I begged my brother to mail the last two books to me so that I didn’t have to wait to know how the saga concludes. And once I knew, I didn’t want it to end. I think it’s safe to say I’m a Potterhead. Here are my thoughts on the last three books of the series:

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix
I loved Luna. I also loved George and Fred’s grand departure from Hogwarts. I didn’t love Cho. Nagini continued to creep me out and give me nightmares. My favorite part of this book, by far, is the formation of Dumbledore’s Army. It’s so cheeky, both in name and in concept, and I think it shows, as does the rest of the series, that it’s a serious mistake to underestimate youth. And yes, I was sad when Sirius passed through the veil, but that sadness was kind of eclipsed by my awe at how badass Dumbledore is, what with covering for Harry about the D.A. and resisting arrest by the Ministry and duking it out in epic fashion with Voldemort, whom Dumbledore has the brazenness to call Tom. My favorite quote in the book comes from Ginny, who tells Harry “The thing about growing up with Fred and George is that you sort of start thinking that anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve.” I think that could be Harry’s personal slogan.

Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince
It was really interesting to see how the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore grew in this book, how Dumbledore began to let Harry in on so much more and trust him with important tasks and information, which made it even more tragic when Dumbledore was killed. I loved how Ginny really came into her own and started letting her sassy and strong-willed side show, and that she didn’t give a damn about whether or not Ron approved of who she was kissing. She’s a true feminist hero. I experienced a whole spectrum of emotions directed at Draco Malfoy, who I hadn’t really bothered to give much thought to in previous books: I hated him when he stomped on Harry’s face while he was petrified, and then, to my surprise, I felt really sorry for him when he was threatening to kill Dumbledore, because his internal struggle between not wanting to kill Dumbledore and feeling like he had to in order to protect his family was so apparent and so sad. I wasn’t surprised to discover that Snape was the Half-Blood Prince, but I was so shocked and angry when he killed Dumbledore and thought that there was no way he could possibly redeem himself for doing something so unforgivable.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows
I was teetering on the edge of an emotional collapse throughout this entire book: if I wasn’t worrying myself sick over whatever sticky spot Harry, Ron and Hermione kept finding themselves in, I was on the verge of tears over the people who were dying and what a terrible world they were living in under the threat of Voldemort seizing total power. I was more amazed than ever at Hermione’s resourcefulness and cleverness, and was so glad that Ron and Harry finally acknowledged that they didn’t know what they would do without her. And of course, I was glad that Ron and Hermione finally got together. I cried when Dobby died. I wept when Harry saw Snape’s memories of his mother in the Pensieve, and at the revelation that he had been protecting Harry from the very beginning, and that his Patronus was still a doe. I wept even harder when he said “Always.” I wept even harder than that when Harry was walking to give himself up to Voldemort, and Neville (who I was so proud of for leading the rebel forces at Hogwarts) said “We’re all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?” I’ve never cried more while reading a book than I did while reading The Deathly Hallows. Even though I knew it was coming, I was heartbroken when Lupin died (especially since he and Tonks had just had a baby!), and felt so sorry for Harry that every positive parental figure Harry had ever had was lost because of a war. I found the bit about The Deathly Hallows really fascinating, especially the way in which so many characters in the book dismissed it as nothing more than a children’s tale. I think many people could say the same thing about the Harry Potter series itself, but I’ve never known any other children’s tales to tell such profound truths about friendship and sacrifice and bravery and loss and the dangers of power and the power of love. There was so much death in this book, maybe too much death for a young reader, but J.K. Rowling treats the topic with an honesty that is simultaneously direct and gentle: one part of the book that struck me the most was toward the end when Dumbledore tells Harry “You are the true master of Death, because the true master of Death does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die and that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.” Although that’s not a particularly new stance to take on death, it just seems really beautiful and powerful to me. All of which is to say: The Deathly Hallows is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and nothing made me happier than to see “All was well” as the final words.

Kendall Visits the Guinness Storehouse.

I haven’t always loved Guinness. In fact the first couple times I tried it, I hated it. But that was in America, which I’m told makes a significant difference. Once I’d had a Guinness in Northern Ireland, I could see it for what it truly was: a dark and frothy little piece of heaven in a pint glass. Needless to say, when I visited Dublin last weekend, visiting the Guinness Storehouse was at the top of my list of things to see.

Fact: Arthur Guinness was a badass. He essentially perfected the art of brewing stout beer and made it a science, and he believed so wholeheartedly in his product that he signed a 9,000-year lease for the storehouse. So boss.

One of my favorite parts of the Storehouse tour was seeing the history of Guinness advertising and how it has evolved over the past couple centuries. My favorite tagline? “Lovely day for a Guinness.” So simple, yet so true.

But of course, the best part of the tour was at the very end, where your admission ticket earned you a free pint of Guinness in the Gravity Bar, which offers stunning 360° views of Dublin. It was perfection. My couchsurfing host, Eoin, was kind enough to accompany me on the tour even though he had already done it three other times (bless his heart!), so we found a seat near the windows, sipped our pints, and chatted happily. And then, to my delight, the entire bar erupted in a sing-a-long of “Molly Malone,” Dublin’s unofficial anthem, and it was like I died and went to heaven. It’s such a quintessentially Irish ditty, and it was the cherry on top of a truly delightful experience.