“So what are you doing? Like, why are you here?”
“I’m taking some time off, you know, waiting until the end of the summer to find a job.”
“But like… what are you doing?”
I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.
Read More
My last college deadline was to be completely packed up and checked out of my on-campus townhouse by 4 pm on graduation day. Yes, after the nervous excitement of placing my cap just-so, figuring out how the mysterious hood was supposed to sit uncomfortably around my neck, waiting to be called to claim my diploma, successfully navigating my way across the stage without falling, and after waiting through another speech and another send-off, I had to rush back to my room and leave my four-year home in two short hours.
Read More
I wasn’t prepared for the high-speed film reel of memories to hit me the second we drove off the 405 onto the 101 highway.
Two hours of driving through my tears on the day I said goodbye to a boy my brain had grown accustomed to telling “I love you,” when my heart just wasn’t there yet. An entire CD of Lady Antebellum Christmas songs my sister and I played on repeat on our way home for winter break. A 40-mile trek with three girls who shared my apartment and the label “best friend” just to walk into a Target.
Read More
New things, better things.
That’s been a go-to phrase for me for the past several months, a reminder in a rather transition-heavy and emotionally-turbulent time in my life to keep my eyes set on the good things to come rather than the worries I usually burden myself with needlessly.
And in the spirit of new things, better things comes along That First Year getting a makeover.
Read More
I saw the finish line. It was close. I never thought I would make it but there I was: six weeks from wearing that awkward too-small cap and oversized gown. I was pages away from closing the book yet with the strongest desire to call it quits and throw it away.
I felt lost. I was anxious and ready to move somewhere new and exciting. I was ready to walk away from everything I worked to build and everything I chased after just for something new. I wasn’t secure in myself, where I was going in life, or the standing I held with the people around me.
Read More
Today I am on a plane.
I have just moved to New York City. I have listened to "Empire State of Mind" 7 times. I have had 2 mimosas. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know how I got here.
Five days ago I was in Nashville, TN. My home for the past 4 years, my city, my happy place.
One day ago I was in Long Lake, MN. My home for the past 22 years, the only home I've ever lived in, my safe haven.
Today I am on a plane.
I have realized there is a difference between dreaming your dreams and living them.
I have also realized how hard it is.
Read More
Two months from now, I will be living 3,700 miles away from home in a country I’ve never visited before.
My boyfriend and I have decided to move to Holland, where he is finishing his degree in The Hague. Several months ago, he asked me to come with him and after much deliberation, planning and money-saving, I’ve decided to take the plunge and come along for the ride. When he first asked me, I was terrified. I’ve never ever visited Holland, how could I move somewhere I’ve never been? I don’t speak the language, how would I get around? Or get a job? What could I do as a job? Where would we live?
Being the planner that I am, I started tackling my list of fears one by one.
Read More
At the top of a long list of things I’m currently avoiding doing is the task of packing up my room to move to a new apartment. After that on the list is a series of time and energy consuming projects — ranging in intensity from “make sure mom knows how to pay your bills” to “build an adequate team of donors so you can start your nonprofit job in August” — that have to be completed before I leave the country for a month in less than a week and a half. I am going to work at a summer camp in British Columbia, so not only am I being pulled far away from my normal routine for a month, I am being pulled away to a secluded location with no wifi or cell service, and there is not a more inconvenient time I can think of to do that than right now.
Right now I am worried about packing all of my belongings, not only for a month away, but to move across town. I am worried about having all my ducks in a row for the new job I begin immediately when I get back. I am worried about my bills getting paid and my emails going unanswered and all the toiletries I haven’t even thought about buying yet. Being pulled out of the routine of my adult life at this current moment is more than just a little jarring, it feels completely chaotic.
Read More
When I graduated last spring, I was a complete jumble of emotions. I was more than ready to be done with school but nowhere close to being prepared for the real world. I didn’t have a job lined up as I had hoped and my near-future seemed seriously bleak. Not to mention it was 90 degrees and my hair was just not cooperating, so of course the irritability ensued.
Read More
It’s my first day on the job as a bike courier and when I look into the bag and see what’s happened, I’m sure it’s also going to be my last. Probably, I shouldn’t have put my metal lock in the same compartment as cans of soda. But also… why couldn’t he have just ordered more fries?!
One of the cans has been punched in the gut and is leaking from the corners of its now-bent frame. Actually, it’s just dripping now, it’s done leaking. My entire bag and its contents are soaked.
Did I mention I’m also lost?
Read More
There are a few things that happen when you graduate college. You celebrate school being finished. You send out job applications with big dreams and starry-eyes. You get rejected and ignored. You send out job applications, and LinkedIn invitations, and cover letter after cover letter—you dream about cover letters—you start losing steam. You want a job. You want a job so badly.
You get a job. You celebrate. You go to your first day in a new pencil skirt with starry-eyes. You love it, for a while. Some days you hate it. Sometimes you wish you could go back to that time when you weren’t tied down to your desk, even though that’s all you wanted. You start losing steam. You want a new job, or to travel, or to do what that girl on Instagram is doing. You want that other life so badly.
And it’s not that what you have is bad, or that it isn’t what you expected. It’s that there are so many reasons to tell yourself that you’re doing something wrong. That you didn’t choose the right path.
Read More
Unsurprisingly, ever since graduation, I’ve been having trouble envisioning myself doing this for the next thirty or forty years. As familiar as I am with delayed gratification, this is starting to seem like there’s no end in sight.
I did, however, have about three months off between finishing my degree and starting work. In between all the (additional) studying I did for my upcoming rotations, I carved out some time for some serious introspection.
I knew I couldn’t continue like this. If there’s one thing I’m afraid of, it’s turning into a jaded doctor that only goes into work for a paycheck and treats each patient like another five-minute appointment - ready or not, next person! - that point when you stop caring about the person sitting in front of you.
Read More
My first year after college has been far better than I ever could have expected.
I, like so many college grads, thought graduating and moving home was going to be a death sentence. How would I be able to go out every weekend? And see my friends all the time?
Read More
Throughout all of this, I felt really alone. I felt like no one else I knew was facing the same problem. Everyone seemed to be finding jobs. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going.
For the first time in my life, I felt pointless. I had always been working toward something. I had always been striving to finish something. Books. Papers. School. Everything always had a tangible ending. But this did not. Joblessness has no clear end in sight. It’s a game of luck and chance. You are at the mercy of first impressions and well-written cover letters.
Read More
It’s discouraging when you work something up in your head for so long and nothing comes of it; the moment I put something in there, I can’t let it go for the life of me. And it’s even more discouraging when you realize that what you want may not exactly be what you need. But John Steinbeck once wrote to his sons: “I have discovered that there are other rivers. A great many never come to know that there are other rivers.” I over-analyze literature like I over-analyze everything else, but what I took from this is that sometimes, we try to cling so hard onto what we know, simply because it’s what we know. But you have to allow your dreams to change so constantly because you are changing so constantly. There are other rivers, and other cities, and other places to grow in. And often, they are the ones you would never expect.
Read More