It's that time of year. The time of year when your Facebook feed is loaded with images of smiling people in graduation caps; in long, heartfelt paragraphs detailing the importance of their uni experience. I try to avoid social media during this time of the year, well the social media outlets that connect me to the people I knew in high school. There's many reasons why I do this, for one, I graduated from uni a little over a year ago and now work as a sale’s associate at a shitty department store. I make minimum wage. I hate my job. I'm constantly treated as though I'm incompetent by people who know absolutely nothing about me and I guess it’s disheartening to see the people I used to know grow and change and learn when I feel so stuck. Also, seeing people graduate gives me this weird kind of amnesia-like nostalgia. I find myself looking back on my uni days through this distorted rose colored lens which makes me completely glance over the fact that I had no friends in college, NONE, I ate almost every meal alone, I locked myself up in my dorm room where I had a string of anxiety and panic attacks, I cried myself to sleep more times than I'd like to admit and I constantly wished I was back home with my family.
Just yesterday I was looking through some old journals I
filled when I was at uni and it was literally painful reading how profoundly
uncomfortable I was with myself and my situation. Don't get me wrong, I learned
A LOT about myself over those three years and I do appreciate the person I've
become because of my experience being essentially alone with myself for that
period of time, but my uni experience was not great and it's definitely not an
experience I should ever look back on with nostalgia.
Isn't it funny how the human mind glazes right over
"traumatic" (not sure this is the right word to use here, maybe
unsavory is more appropriate) experiences. Look how quickly after graduation I
forgot about some of the worst times of my very short lived life. Amazing.
But what was I talking about, oh yeah, my life after uni.
There have been some good things. I'm not nearly as anxious or depressed as I
was before and I've really been working on managing the ups and downs which is
something I never could have done if I hadn't gone to uni. I am working, which
means I'm making money, which means I'm paying down my student debt, which
means I'm making my way towards being student debt free. That's honestly what
keeps me going these days, working to be debt free. It gives me a purpose and a
goal to strive towards which is probably the hardest thing to manage once
you're out of school. You go from being on this path, take 15 credits a
semester, talk to your advisor once a month, show up to your classes, study for
your finals, make sure to practice for that oral presentation you have to give
in a week and a half, to nothing. All of a sudden you're out of school, you
have a degree, and...then what? You start applying for jobs? What if the
problem is not knowing what you want to do, not knowing what you're qualified
to do, not knowing enough about yourself to make the big decisions you have to
make in order to move forward? I don't know. I wish there was a class about
that, maybe I wouldn't feel so lost.
I have a lot more to write about. I need to write more.
That's priority number one for the upcoming months. Summer seems to be a very
productive time for me. I'm like a plant I need the sun to survive, otherwise I
just wither up and lose all my leaves. I want to use this blog as a place to
vent. Not as personal as a journal, but more accessible you know? I want to hear
about people who struggle to find themselves after college (wow I've become a cliché).
I want to hear about people with depression or anxiety and how they deal with
it. I want to be collaborative. I never wanted to make lots of money that was
never my plan for life. All I wanted was to live somewhere quiet by the water.
I don't know how to get there but it's something to strive for. Maybe that's
the goal I'm looking for?
Till next time,
X
