My name is Hannah McCoy and I’m 20 years old. Some people say my life is messy. I say, if you never make a mess, how will you ever have the chance to clean it up and find what you’re looking for?
It might sound silly, but sometimes I feel like I’m not even making my own decisions. Like there is a greater force telling me what I can and cannot do. I know. I sound ridiculous. And I hear you: I have to take responsibility for my choices. After all, there’s no one to blame but me I guess.
That’s the hardest lesson when you’re a young adult in your early 20s. As a kid, it was easy to blame mom and dad for that bear costume I wore for a week. I just wanted to feel seen. They were both always so busy… I had to get attention somehow.
I’m sure you understand.
But now I’m a grown up and I can’t even contact my parents. They just — dropped out of my life.
Sometimes I wonder if they were ever even there in the first place.
Maybe that’s where it comes from? My endless need to find love because I never felt it growing up. Despite that, I’ve always been one to look on the bright side of things. I’d drive my friends crazy back in high school, always giving some cliche cheerful advice. What can I say— I guess I’m better at trying to help others then helping myself.
I grew up in a small town called Willow Creek in the affluent neighborhood known as Sage Estates. As the daughter of Charles, a prominent Hedge Fund Manager, and Poppy, the Lead Litigator at Crumplebottom and Goth, there were high expectations. In high society, you’re expected to follow every rule, marry the man your parents have deemed worthy, and if you have any questions, well, that’s for the butler to do.
By the time I graduated, I entered the world with virtually no life skills. And I know what you’re going to say —
“Hannah, why didn’t you study and prepare yourself for the future?”
The truth is, I spent my high school years doing everything I could to rebel against my parents. There just wasn’t any time left to study. Besides, as long as they thought I was going to marry J Huntington III, nothing else really mattered.
When I became a young adult though, I was eager to start my own adventure. My parents were devastated when they learned I wasn’t going to marry J, and they cut me off from everything. I packed by bags, adopted my dog Buttercup, and moved to Sable Square in Brindleton Bay. The real estate was fairly cheap when we moved in and I was able to afford a small one bedroom home with the $20,000 grant I was given from the Willow Creek “Simoleons for Everyone” Fund — a grant that every young adult receives when they first move out onto their own. It’s pretty cool.
I was excited to live in Sable Square. My best friend from high school, Brent, lived right down the street with his new husband, Brant.
I know. Brent and Brant. Only Brent would marry someone with a name that rhymes with his own!
It was a relief to know I had a good friend in the neighborhood. We used to do so much together back in high school. Now when I hang out with him though, I feel a bit like a third wheel. Brant is nice and all, but we’ve never really clicked.
But every time I watch them together, I know that the love they have is the love that I want.
I may not have a lot of skills, or a career that I’m passionate about yet. But there is one thing I know with absolute certainty I want more than anything in my life — and that’s to fall in love.
So I set out on a mission: This year, I was going to find the one.
