hil went to sarah lawrence, hil graduated, and a year later hil is....?

i just realized that it's been over a year since my commencement from sarah lawrence came and went. the culmination of my undergraduate education was pretty anticlimactic, but the year since then? i guess you could say it's been tumultuous/enthralling/liberating/ecstatic/orgasmic/abusive/satisfying/real.

since graduation, i've accomplished/experienced the following:

-got lost in translation in tokyo (oh my god i'm so witty/facepalm) in soooo many ways

-signed my very first lease on my very first apartment in one of my very favorite cities in the whole wide world

-beefed up my arts & entertainment press portfolio while contributing columns/music/arts pieces to chicks with guns, stuff magazine and go2 media

-applied for 3094850298348 jobs, landed a pretty sick one and got laid off four months later, agh

-loved hard and lost big and, gasp, got over it, even though it took months for it to happen

-learned how to ride my bike in rush hour traffic

-watched the first of my friends get married

-lost touch with old acquaintances; acquired new darling, wonderful friends

-relished in my unemployment and capitalized on the opportunities it gave me to nest, really take care of myself, satisfy countless creative urges and work on my fitness like a madwoman

-saw 93840298304298340283 concerts and met about half of the bands who played them

-watched my parents endure one of the worst tragedies a family can go through and loved them infinitely more than i thought possible when they lived through it

-ate red velvet cake on my 23rd birthday in the company of 25 of my absolute favorite people on the planet

-realized that i will never be the type who just "does it for the money", that i'm meant to do great things, and that i'm the only person who can get in my own way

-oh, yeah. and i cut my hair and got my nose pierced.

so, yeah. a year ago, i was caught up in all things new york: pinching myself over my days at rolling stone, nursing a pretty hefty caffeine addiction courtesy of my most dysfunctional of second families at slave to the grind, getting my ass kicked by the city on a daily basis only to run back to it in order to convince myself that i was alive and making the most of sharing manhattan with an incredible assortment of fascinating people i was lucky enough to call dear friends. today, i'm living in an apartment that finally feels like my home, spending every minute out of the office in the company of lively, lovable people and doing everything i possibly can to make sure that i'll be doing what i love and what i was born to be doing sooner rather than [too] later.

that's not so bad for a year, now, is it?