04 May 2017 "Taking the Leap"

A few months ago I applied for Teach For America, convincing myself that having a plan and, more importantly, a guaranteed flow of money, after graduation would make me feel a bit more put together. I made it through the interview process, but (perhaps fortunately) was not ultimately chosen as a candidate. For a while when I received questions of my ever-looming entrance into the workforce, I could simply answer with my ideas of Teach For America, and how I would use the two-year commitment to develop my skills as a graduate paying off her student loans. People would nod in agreement. Addressing money always seems to be the right answer, at least to those who don’t know you very well.

            Less than a month out from graduation, and I’ve formulated a new plan for post-grad—I’m going to move to California and stay for a few months with my aunt and uncle in San Francisco while I get a temporary job and try to figure myself out as a twenty-two year old college graduate. For the most part, everyone I’ve told has been really supportive, adopting the attitude that I should do as much exploring as I can while I’m young and don’t have any real responsibilities. When I first told my mom, I was afraid that she would be hurt I didn’t want to immediately move home, but she was surprisingly understanding. In fact, we’ve developed a plan to drive out there together so that I can have my car and won’t be limited to where I can travel. I’m really looking forward to having the opportunity to explore myself and the world a little bit, and things just seem to continue to fall more and more into place as time goes on.

            And yet, I still occasionally find myself feeling nervous and somewhat unsure of myself. I know (and have been told) that it’s compeltely normal to feel this way, that all things I’m used to are ending, and that most of the relationships I’ve spent the past four years exploring and nurturing are realistically not going to exist in a year. I also know for a fact that almost everyone I know is feeling just as disoriented as I am. But sometimes I still feel that I’m not really doing things right because I don’t have a clear identifiable job name to tell people when they ask about my future plans.

            A few weeks before I formulated my revised plan for going to California, I went out to a bar and ran into one of the guys who went to Cape Town with me last spring. We were both a little drunk, I hadn’t initially planned on going out, and I was feeling a little invisible. He used his drink to wipe something off his forehead, and asked me, somehow still awkwardly even though we were drunk in a bar, what my plans were for after graduation. He isn’t one of my closest friends, so I gave an abbreviated, shrug-at-the-camera version of the answer I reserve for adults. I intimated that I was considering going back to Cape Town within the next few years, and he interrupted me quickly, asking if I was serious. At the time, I didn’t really have any concrete plans, and I told him this, but the only thing he seemed to have heard was the fact that there is a place called Cape Town, and that it still exists without us living there, and that he probably isn’t ever going to go back, not really. He told me he already had a job, and that he hated it before he even started. Or maybe he said he hated his life before it had even started. I was a little drunk. I haven’t gotten the chance to talk to him about our futures again since then, but I am fairly certain that he would express similar jealousy at the plan I have now for exploring my youth in a different state if he knew about it.
            In fact, I have had several conversations already with friends of mine (who have adult-pleasing answers of specific job titles) that express their jealousy when they hear about my planned ballsy move across the country. I guess it’s an answer they haven’t really heard before, and they’re really interested to know the motivation behind someone who is lucky enough to have the opportunity to throw herself into a foreign situation in order to see a sliver of what else is out there. I think my generation has been pulled in several different directions, the most prominent of them being the direction inspiring safety—go to school, study hard, get a job, that sort of thing.

            In fact, I recently had this exact conversation with my mom and one of my good friends. He’s a year younger than me, but he was one of the first people I told about my desire to go out to California, and since then he has been one of the biggest supporters of the plan. The three of us were sitting in Dangerously Delicious, a pie restaurant that my mom and I have recently started to frequent, and we had just come from the release party for Corridors, my school’s literary magainze, in which my friend and I had both read our fiction pieces to a small audience of professors and our peers. I’m not entirely sure how the conversation veered into the territory of millenials getting jobs after graduation, but somehow it got there, and my mom and my friend were quick to defend my desire to explore and find myself a little before settling down. “The thing about my generation,” my mom started, “Is that no one ever told us we shouldn’t lock ourselves into a job right away after graduating. And so I think we all have learned that too late, and don’t want our kids to make the same mistakes.” My friend nodded vigorously. “I think so many kids get caught up in doing what they think they’re supposed to do,” my mom continued, “that they never get the chance to realize that the best time to explore the world and see what they like is while they’re young. They’re too afraid to say that after graduation they’re going to move to a completely different place and hang out with their cousin who owns a tattoo parlor.” (I have a cousin out in California who works in a tattoo parlor).  

            It felt really good to have my mom say, without provocation, that she thought going out to a state I haven’t seen since I was fourteen and getting to know people who live lives outside the realm of the traditional professional world is exactly where I am supposed to be this summer. It’s really validating to hear that kind of support, and I’ve been feeling really good lately about this large step I’ve decided to take after graduatoin. I’m certainly fearful that I’m not going to want to come back—after all, a few months ago I was mainly concerned about the fact that I had no desire to go back to my hometown in the first place, because I knew how easily I can fall into a monotonous routine of unhappiness there. I’m also fearful that too many things will change at home while I’m gone, things like my mom finally moving out of my childhood home and into Baltimore, or my dog passing away, or someone in my family getting sick. But it seems like too big of a gamble to miss out on opportunities that could completely change my life just because I’m fearful of change.

            I really came to realize this about two weeks ago while in one of my Sociology classes. We were watching part of a documentary focused on Lagos, Nigeria, and the fact that much of the old digital waste (i.e. old computers and computer things) from the United States ends up there, taking up space and causing problems of leakage into water systems and the air. While looking at some of the shots of roads, towns, and shops in Lagos, I had this sudden moment of realization that, although the world is a big place, it’s actually pretty small when you really think about it. If my fear can make me have doubts about moving across this country, who knows how far it would hold me back from my future, and from all my desires of getting to know the world? When I was in high school, I used to think constantly about traveling and exploring the world. When I went abroad last spring, I got my first taste of how unique and life-changing it can be to live in another place so utterly different from everything you’re used to. It was intoxicating at times, and I remember being the best version of myself while I was there. It’s that feeling that I want to chase—and pushing myself to California seems like an ideal first step to make myself into what high school me always dreamed I could be. 

            I think that I’m ultimately ready to take the next step in my life. Everything seems to be pointing to a comfortable close in my experience at Loyola, and somehow, (perhaps simply in the craziness of it all) I’m not feeling all that sad about leaving college right now. When people ask if I’m ready to graduate, I usually say that it’s crazy how quickly graduation came around, but that I definitely feel done with my experience at Loyola. I need a break from school—not just the academic part, but the being surrounded by my peers all the time part of it too. I’m ready to explore a part of the world that is a little more indicitave of what the world is really like—people working jobs and exploring their passions and living average days. I want to get to know more people that have taken both tradional and nontraditional paths to get where they are. And I’m excited to get to know what it’s like to live in a big city on the West Coast where I can reinvent myself if I want to. 

            In a way, I’m really glad that I didn’t get accepted to the Teach for America job. A two-year commitment of a $45,000 a year salary is quite comforting to bring home and describe to people when they ask what I plan to do with my expensive degree from Loyola. But at the end of the day, I know myself, and I know that I haven’t been my happiest when I’ve taken the route of safety and predictability. The night before I left for Cape Town, I was terrified, constantly giving mean looks to my mom and texting my (at the time) boyfriend to make sure he would be willing to keep things the same and ready for me when I got back. But after having gone to Cape Town and come back, I can confidently say to people that it was the best five months of my life so far. I never want to get to a place in my life where I no longer feel comfortable completing that phrase with “so far”. And, so far, I think I’ve done well to avoid that.