The Laundromat Chronicles
Post-Graduation Expectations: Traveling to new and exciting places you have never gone before.
Post-Graduation Reality: Traveling to new and exciting places you have never gone before.
That’s right! I did it! And this trip left an impression on me and changed my outlook on what my life should be like one month after graduating college.
So where did I go?
Why, the laundromat of course! (What, you thought I meant London? Literally in my dreams.)
I can honestly say that in the four and a half years that I was in college, I never had to go to a laundromat. My dorms always had washers and dryers on the bottom floor, and my apartments have always had units inside. So when our washing machine broke last month, I vowed to go where no Kendall Cherry had gone before.
As my clothes tumbled and turned in the silver space, I started to look around at who could possibly be at a laundromat on a Monday in the middle of the day. Mothers with five laundry baskets of pink and purple clothing for little girls. College students with more colorful t-shirts and Norts than colors of Skittles. Mechanics with light blue grease-stained uniforms and worn down work boots.
I think my first month after college became a time where I only worried about myself. What do I need to be doing to get my passport? What do I need to be doing to apply for grad school? What do I need to be doing to find a full-time job? How else can I worry about me, myself, and I?
And while there’s nothing wrong with that some of the time, as those are “life administrative” tasks that have to be done, I felt like I got lost in looking toward the future and forgot to be present with the people around me.
I think I realized, while being hypnotized by my dirty laundry, that everyone around me has a story, and sometimes all they need is a little love and recognition. Even the barista who uses the same joke every time they ask what name to write on my cup (“Oh Kendall—like the Kindle Fire?”). The people around you were given a name – learn it and use it.
People are complex and have a lot more going on than they care to admit. But I found in a place that gathers a variety of stories that we all share the same deeply human experience of daily life.
