This tiramisu is amazing.

After two weeks now living in my college town for the summer, I now have an internship amazingly and am planning on picking up some extra serving work to bring in some extra income. My fabric to drape my ceiling has come in, and after a few repairmen, the house is finally no longer falling apart. And yet even after all this “adulting,” it has come to my attention that some of you are still acting like children.

There are many stages of reaching maturing and continuing to mature, including most importantly the formation of your own individual morals and thoughts concerning your outlook on how you are going to live the rest of your life. Most of these ideas and concepts are ones I most often like to write about: happiness, relationships, individuality, independence, identity, etc.; however, the world wasn’t designed for others (i.e. me or any other individual) to tell you how you should think or inform you on how the world works. You are supposed to figure that out on your own. How do you do that?

You ask questions.

What are you all not doing?

Asking questions.

Before you roll your eyes and *pff* because “I ask questions in class,” that’s clearly not what I’m talking about, nor am I talking about asking your parents how to use the toaster for the first time. I’m talking about asking the questions and doing the tasks you’re dragging your feet on because you already have a feeling what the answer is going to be and you know there’s no way of getting around the task.

Exhibit A: You want a little extra income and consider picking up a part-time job. You consistently talk about applying to your friends for a month. It takes you another month to go pick up the application and another to turn it in. All in all, you still get the same outcome of a job several months later but wasted your time dragging your feet when you could’ve had a job and that extra income earlier. Simple right? You just need a little bit more self-discipline.

Let’s make this juicier… a relationship (or more likely a "situationship").

Exhibit B: If there’s one thing I’ve taken away from my major previous relationships, it is to not be afraid of asking questions. When I’ve dug my heels into the past, I’ve risked potential new relationships, my prioritization of myself, and my appreciation of the present that leads to happiness. When I’ve been afraid to ask questions, it is because I felt I already knew the answer, but if I never asked then I never had the potential to hear the answer I didn’t want to hear.

Question 1: Do you want the same things out this relationship that I do?

No, you don’t need to ask to be serious on the first date; however, months down the road I’ve ignored signs that tell me the other person isn’t as serious about me as I am about them. If you don’t want anything serious, then that’s great and you don’t need to ask this question! And of course if there aren’t signs that are making you feel uneasy about the other’s actual feelings then you don’t need to ask this either, but if you fear that they are then you need to ask the question. The only thing you’re accomplishing by putting off asking this question is wasting your time on someone who’s still going to break your heart at the end of the day, whether that be now or several months from now.

Question 2: Do you want to hang out?

This one is dumb right? But frankly, it’s really damn sad how many people I know choose to continue taking the route of a coward because they’re just not sure the other person likes them. I really don’t understand how they plan on finding that out if they never actually indicate to the other person that they actually like them. Yes, I know. Growing a pair is easier said than done, but the other person may literally have zero clues you have any interest in them. On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps they know all too well how much you’re into them, and you’re afraid to ask because you think they’ll say no. Either way, your relationship will get nowhere if you don’t put yourself out there trying to spend time with them.

Question 3: I love you (I have feelings for you).

Although not a question, this one often feels like a question. It isn’t even the fact of “do you love/have feelings for me back?” but of “do you accept my openness, vulnerability, and honesty without making you uncomfortable?” Most truthfully, this is the sole question I continue to struggle with myself. While all the other questions that others may be afraid to ask I have no fear in, to say I love you is admitting to myself (just as verbally asking all these other questions is admitting something to yourself) that I have given someone else the opportunity to wound me in my most vulnerable place. Because sadly I’ve been in a place before where I gave my love to someone that hurt me emotionally, whether intentional or not, and it makes me afraid to allow someone into that deepest place again. I have felt that I often find difficult to even admit to myself as love because then that means that the next step if for me to tell that person.

As you very well know, every choice we make, no matter how small, determines the ripple effects that vibrate forward into our future. The series of events in our lives is cause and effect. Finish the laundry now, do your homework sooner, have more time to study, do better on the test, continue the pattern, make deans list, find an internship, receive a job offer, and continue down this successful path of life. As the other out, go on a date, kiss, go on more dates, fall in love, tell them you love them, maybe fall out of love, maybe not, maybe finally meet someone new who feels the same way, too.

Do not be afraid of asking questions.

XOXO, Isa