Hello, Internet.

Hello, internet.

I'm writing to you with a question. A perhaps too-topical question for this particular situation: what does one write when they're first starting a blog? Are the opening lines the time to acknowledge how silly it is to have so many thoughts in your head that you think someone out there in cyberspace may find them to be worth reading? Maybe it's the right moment to bring up my greatest passions in life, or to mention my recent break from my long-term relationship (which you will undoubtedly roll your eyes about) or my newfound anxiousness as I attempt to take on this crazy world. Do I try to make you laugh, to win you over with my fast cracking wit and effortless charm so you're sure I'm just as funny in real life as I am on screen? Or do I feed you a deep, enticing story about my darkest secrets?

Maybe I should just start with something simple: my name.

Hi! I'm Madison. And Kitchen is my last name. Really.

I decided to call this blog The Kitchen Sink in part because of my last name. I also thought it might be amusing to have somebody stumble upon this thinking it was some sort of cooking or kitchen advice blog, only to find a wide eyed college student blogging about her life experience, but I digress. I mostly was drawn to the title because of that common phrase we hear when talking about cookies made with a plethora of random ingredients or simply when trying to encompass everything imaginable: "Everything but the kitchen sink."

But why leave out the kitchen sink? What is it about the kitchen sink that doesn't fit in with everything imaginable?

The question turned existential more quickly than I had expected when I asked the same question about myself in the context of the world. I didn't like thinking about it, that idea that there's something in each of us that doesn't fit in with everything imaginable, something in each of us that makes us our own kind of kitchen sink. It felt like being left out of some sort of exclusive club. But then I wondered if perhaps the state of wondering was a magical place to be, and an interesting thing to explore in--you guessed it--a blog.

And now here we are. I will be using this blog as a way to express and investigate my thoughts on things that I think are like the kitchen sink: unusual, misplaced, left out. What does it mean to be newly single and repulsed by Tinder, or be in a social situation with people you love that makes you really uncomfortable? How do you function when you give up social media when everyone around you uses it? Why does catcalling feel so different from a compliment? How do you get job experience when every job requires 2 years of job experience?

Those silly little questions are just the beginning. But I'm not sure where this will go. I guess I'll have to figure it out as I go along.

When you're just shy of 20 and living in a big city, everything is up in the air.

Have a good night, internet.

-mk.