Graduation!

My sister Dayna is graduating from college today! Exciting. I thought it would be nice to reflect on my own graduation, five years ago in 2011 (I took a year off after freshman year).

By the grace of God alone, I graduated. I was seriously on the struggle bus my entire senior year of college for various reasons, which won't be listed. I passed geology (or some class along those lines) with a D. Yep, somehow that was passing for me? I didn't question it. Goodbye UAB.

Riley always striking a pose

It was a fun ride, but like most college seniors, I was so completely over it. I was over school, over Birmingham, over my studio apartment, over everyone in Alabama...

I was headed to New Orleans like, the day after graduation to start my season cheering for the Saints - and I was ret-to-go.

But five years later, I'm reflecting on what I could have done differently following my walk across the stage. I guess this isn't stuff I would have done differently...but hindsight is always 20/20 so why not imagine a different path...

I think I would have cheered for more than one season. I say think because I truly don't know. If you know anything about the world of dance/cheer, you know it's a full time job without fulltime pay/benefits. There are both pros and cons. You sacrifice a lot. While I was thrilled to cheer for one season, toward the end of that season, I wanted to start a career. I go back and forth on this.

Saints cheerleaders in Florida - 2011

I'm a pretty impulsive person so I was at ESPN working as a production assistant (no questions asked) right at the end of the football season. I loved working for ESPN. There's no doubt it looks good on a resume. Everyone always wants to talk about it. But a part of me wonders if I should have skipped ESPN altogether. Maybe I should've started my on-screen TV career earlier, instead of move north to the wintery hell that is Bristol. Okay, it's not that bad. I made some good friends there who I'm still in touch with today. But I do question that decision sometimes.

From Bristol back to Alabama, this time - Montgomery. While taking my first on-air job at WAKA was one of my best decisions, of course I would have done things different contractually lol. And all the reporters say...

Then to Phoenix - let's just not go there.

And back to Atlanta. I love where I'm at now geographically. I haven't lived in Georgia full-time since I was 19. I love this state. Of course, I wish certain circumstances were different. But a lot of that is out of my control. (ps- Read Brianne Gurley's interview under the 'people' section for having purpose/confidence in God and God alone)

I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform at my best in life. So I'm always looking for what's best for me. In five more years, I want to know that what I'm doing now is beneficial. A lot can happen in 5 years...

28

It’s my birthday!  28 years young on this Tuesday. I’ve actually been dreading this day. Like many, I have a love/hate relationship with getting older. There’s no turning back lol. But today has been nice (so far). As you get older, the pressure to do something major, or celebrate big lessens. (Unless of course, you have a milestone birthday, turning 30 or 50 or something.) But 28, meh. I don’t even have the energy to do anything (besides eat.) You find yourself thankful for little things. With that said, I did splurge on a new bag. I figure the 28-year-old me deserves something nice. It’s crazy to think we are already five months in to 2016. I feel like just yesterday, it was New Year’s Eve! I guess that’s another sign I’m getting older, the time is flying. So…with a little more than 7 months left in the year, I have some plans - some big, some small. I hope I can get the ball rolling. Some plans require sacrifice and patience…things I quite frankly just don’t enjoy.

And if the elevator tries to bring you down....

What a tough day for so many people, myself included. I grew up listening to Prince. He was on repeat at our house, mostly because my dad was obsessed with him. He made sure to let us know time and time again that Prince wrote, played, produced all of his music. He was a musical genius. So I grew up listening to all of his stuff…not just the popular stuff on the radio…but so many other tracks which were often (in my humble opinion) better than the singles released.

A childhood friend wrote this on my Facebook wall….

“Prince will always remind me of your family. Singing into the vacuum cleaner. Laughing to P.contol lol good time!!”

(note: listening to P control as kids was wildly inappropriate)

I find it so odd that Prince passed away today for a few reasons. He played in Atlanta last week. The tickets went on sale two weeks ago (to everyone’s surprise.) Of course, when I got around to looking up tickets online, there were none left. Take that back, I think there was an $800 ticket left on Ticketmaster. I checked Craigslist and people were selling one or two tickets at $400 a pop. “Not paying that,” I thought. But now (of course) I’m so upset I didn’t go to his very last show.

I have a long commute home, about an hour. So I listen to CDs, podcasts, etc…

Yesterday while driving, all I wanted to hear was a Prince song called “Style.” It’s one of my favorite songs of his. I listened to it over and over in high school. If you know anything about Prince, you know that he’s very strict with his music/material. You won’t find much, if anything, on YouTube or elsewhere online. While driving, I even checked the iTunes store to see if that one song was there to purchase. Nope. (We have the CD with Style, ‘Emancipation,’ somewhere at home. But who knows where)

So I ended up buying Emancipation again (Wednesday). Just because I wanted to hear the song so badly. It will come in the mail soon, yay.

I’m so glad I didn’t find out about Prince’s death online or from someone dumb. Instead, my dad texted me. Prince’s #1 fan let me know.  I was in a store at the time so I wasn’t online or in the car listening to the radio.

These series of (little) events taught me a few things.

1. Buy/Do what you want. Who knows how long you’ve got on this earth. Seem like a foolish idea? Maybe – but I’m not a financial expert so I don’t care. Had I known Atlanta would be the last place Prince would play, I wouldn’t have thought twice about buying tickets.

2. Life is short. Nothing saves you in the end. Not money, not fame. To borrow a line from Prince’s song ‘Money don’t matter 2nite,’ "That's when you find out that you're better off makin sure your souls alright...cause money didn’t matter yesterday and it sure don’t matter tonight."

Things that pissed me off today:

1. Having to go BACK to work after hearing the news (I was on my lunch break)

2. People posting pictures that weren't of Prince on Instagram

3. Thinking about today's music 'artists.' What a bunch of crap we're left with

'Cause in this life,things are much harder than in the afterworld....'