“I am going to find myself.” How many times has that line been thrown around by an idealistic twenty-something? The twenties are a decade of individuality. There is no suburban family, house payments, etc. to tie down the twenty-year-old, which means that she is free to explore various career opportunities, splurge on that first unrealistic but sporty car, and most excitedly, take advantage of the dating world. There is nothing like the butterflies before a first date or a first kiss. It is the perfect chance for a Liminas woman to discover which qualities she prefers in a man and...

It’s a situation we Liminas women know all too well: freshly graduated from college and thrown out into the world with nary an idea of what to do next. While most of us twenty-somethings settle for a ho-hum entry level job {if we’re lucky!} or apply to graduate schools, Miranda Adler decided to take a less traditional path. Attracted to the nonprofit world, she took it one step further and turned her interest in humanitarian work into a full fledged adventure. She packed up, moved to Kenya, and settled in a rural village. The obstacles Miranda faced are unique to...

It has been days now that I cannot get this quote out of my head: “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”  I believe it’s a rough interpretation of a French musing by Voltaire, but regardless it seems to perfectly encapsulate a dilemma that so many of us quarter-life gals face: the issue of “settling.” On one hand we’ve got Carrie Bradshaw romanticizing the notion that “some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.” And we all know what it’s like to gently remind our girlfriends of the perils of settling when we see them...

What began as a conversation with my best friend about the notion of relocating to new cities with boyfriends, turned into a larger dialogue about the nature of commitment itself: why is it so inherently difficult for some of us quarter-life gals to sustain a long-term relationship nowadays? As twenty-somethings, we are more on the move than ever. Between college, studying abroad, graduate schools, and careers, it seems like none of us are in one place for more than a year or two at a time. And if we are lingering in one geographical location for too long, we all...

  In her first mainstream book, The Case for Falling in Love, Mari Ruti, PhD, examines much of the fad-driven advice women readily devour from the self-help aisles of their local bookstores and ultimately proves why it’s often better to screw the “rules” than to live by them. Popular philosophies like He’s Just Not That Into You, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and Why Men Love Bitches neatly package the notion of love into something that is palatable and easily achievable through simple adherence to certain principles. Ruti, however, argues that by reducing love to a step-by-step procedure,...

  It’s hard to deal with loss: the end of a relationship, the end of a life.  As we enter further into adulthood we’re faced with more and more experiences of loss.  I suppose it’s simply a matter of time, right?  The more time we spend living, the more moments we’ll spend dealing with loss and all its accompanying emotions {pain, heartbreak, and regret, to name a few}. I recently lost a loved one who was very dear to me.  My aunt passed away at the end of the same week in which I had just ended my nearly 6...

  Cheers to you, single quarter-lifers! I’d like to raise a glass to the single girl. As our twenties linger on, sometimes it feels like we’re a dying breed, watching our girlfriends slowly settle into relationships and wondering who the hell is gonna join us on Tuesday nights for Glee and DYI pedis using the Justin Bieber OPI polish (shhh). Thank goodness for Sex and the City, which not only erased the shame behind being a single woman but actually celebrated it in all its fabulousness. Still though, there’s that creeping doubt in the back of so many of our...

Sometimes when we’re in relationships we wrap ourselves in falsities and justifications {maybe it makes dealing with the everyday easier, more comfortable?} so that it gets to a point where we aren’t really sure of anything anymore.  How can we reach in to our guarded and defensive {and maybe even in denial} selves to figure out if we would be better off breaking it all off?  Asking friends and loved ones can give us insight into their thoughts, but ultimately the decision has to be our own. I believe in listening to your heart and trusting your gut.  Intuition can...