Good morning, everyone! Okay, I’ll get it out of the way. I’ve been away for awhile and although I haven’t been writing/building my portfolio/advancing in any way, this time away largely been productive. I’m getting eight (okay, eleven) hours of sleep every night. I’ve lost the post-21 run gin and tonic bloat, and have replaced it with unlimited-access-to-free-carbs bloat. I’ve developed a nice base tan and revisited my favorite childhood cartoons, no matter how cringey they might be (yep, I’m looking at you, Winx Club). I even cyberbullied Drake a little bit during that Pusha T beef.
So, where exactly is your not-especially humble keyboard preacher? You guessed it! Home!
That’s right. As a proud, semi-decorated recent college grad, I’m starting my “real world journey” somewhere I never imagined: my parents’ house.
I must say, even if the intensity of my time here has been equivalent to a toddlers’ rollercoaster (a.k.a. flat and slow with constant supervision), it’s been quite the ride. Why? Every aspect of it has been its own dichotomy, most of which have generally been pretty rude. My motivation is at an all time low and my anxiety is at an all time high. Every awkward hometown grocery store conversation has both included a prying “so… what now? :)” and a spiteful “ready to work for the rest of your life?” For this reason, each morning begins with a frantic checking of my LinkedIn and Gmail accounts, always simultaneously wishing for both a promising notification and no notifications at all (luckily for my reluctance, it’s generally been the latter).
The “bright lights, big city” dreams I’ve clung to my whole life get pushed aside by hometown nostalgia and my entirely regionally-bound social life, only to resurface late at night in the forms of internal uncertainty and inappropriate breakdowns during Law and Order SVU marathons with my mom. I hate my friends but I’m also more in love with them than ever. Some days my ideal entertainment sounds like a performance art pop-up in the East village, other days it sounds like a hometown softball tournament (on extra tumultuous days, it’s both!) I’ve even contemplating revisiting the local guy pool, which is as equal-parts attractive and disgusting as eating a greasy hot dog in line for a Ferris wheel at Coney Island on a hot summer day. Yum! 🙂
Being frank, it’s all very scary. My career goals are changing, my priorities are shifting, and my anxiety of letting myself and others down is getting more intense by the day, which brings me to an even more terrifying possibility: am I becoming a cliche?
The thing is, yes, I am. It’s pretty obvious. I mean, I literally had an internal dialogue for the seventieth time about which Sex and the City character I am while eating rice cakes alone in my parents’ kitchen this morning, for God’s sake!** And that’s okay! The more I step outside of the depths of my head/unemployed Twitter, the more I realize that I’m not alone in this troubling, transitory time. There are literally hundreds of thousands of other college grads going through the same “I need to find a job to kickstart my life/bank account but also I have no idea what I want to do for a career and also never want to work a day in my life” narrative as I am. Or, at least I think there is.
If there’s one thing we can learn from Alexis Bledel coming-of-age comedies, it’s never as easy as we think, especially when it comes to growing up. Yes, we learn and grow and have fun and hopefully continue to get hotter as we age (at least for a while), but we also get rejected and discouraged and might have to have a few (many) mental breakdowns along the way. Half of our friends are getting married and adopting dogs, while the other half is dancing half-naked at music festivals. We have no money, little experience, and very high life expectations. We want to grow up but are still desperately clinging to our youth (I mean, I impulse-bought a child’s tank top from Walmart a month ago). Add in the unrealistic, anonymously-sourced pressures of landing a dream job with a desirable work/life balance and benefits immediately after college, and it’s enough to make anyone stare pull a Tina Belcher on the carpet for a while. I guess just because I finally have the good kind of B.S. doesn’t mean I can completely avoid the other.
So… what now? To the four people who will read this post, here’s my answer to your grocery store question: I’m going to keep dreaming big. I’ll keep sliding cheeky emails into potential employers’ DMs and keep looking tirelessly for jobs from the comfort of my dad’s La Z Boy. Someday, I might even commit to one! But, in the meantime, I’m going to keep sunbathing while listening to Lana Del Rey pretending I’m Elvira Montana for four hours a day. I’m going to keep eating all of my parents’ Twizzlers and devoting too much energy to skincare and watching the same Glossier “Get Ready With Me” video over and over again for some reason. I’ll go to the campfires, reunions, and rodeos, and I’ll enjoy the hell out of them. I’ll probably even redownload Tinder, swipe left on the five local boys with accounts, then delete it (full disclosure, I’ve already done it once since I’ve been back).
Above all, I’m going to take it one day at a time, take lots of deep breaths, and maintain an open mind, because if there’s one thing this humble return to my roots has taught me, it’s that it’s okay not to have it “all figured out.” Through every experience we have, good or bad, jet-set or mundane, we learn, grow, and develop. In the three weeks that I’ve been home since the permanent end of college that I still haven’t entirely accepted, I can already tell that I’ve changed: maybe not in ways that I had expected, but surely for the better. I’ve become more appreciative of where I come from and more excited about the future, whatever it may hold. I’ve gotten wiser, humbler, and tanner and I can say with all honestly that I can’t wait to keep going. Now please stop asking me about my five year plan at the grocery store, and let my lactose-intolerant ass defiantly buy my yogurt in peace.
**After years of deliberation, I’ve finally settled on the idea that I am a Samantha. There’s really no getting around it. Yes, she has her flaws, but we all do, and realizing that is proof of personal growth. Hmm… maybe this unemployed limbo isn’t entirely fruitless after all