rewind two years…
As an undergrad there was a palpable fear when it came to future employment wonderings. Some were classically unaffected and overly-confident: an obvious defense mechanism. Others would looked pained at the mention of 401K options. Even more took a blasè approach, though this technique was more of an “over-the-shoulder acknowledgment in passing” rather than an actual approach to the issue. These young men and women of America would instead teach English in a developing country, hike or smoke their graduation money away, or enter into grad school without ever taking their backpacks off.
I can’t say one way is better than another, but I was part of another camp that was borderline psycho-obsessed with the prospect of attaining a job. It became a problem. Any job. I am surprised I didn’t grind my keyboard into dust from typing so many cover letters and rèsumè revisions. Jobs were conduits to new challenges, homes, friends, and consequently, boys. Though that is another discussion altogether.
In my endless search benders, I’d select a constant, like location, and toss it into a pot with the other variables stirred up around it. Cackling like a witch, I’d drive my staff into the kettle and after a good swirl, ladle out the results of my alphabet soup career. Travel coordinator in Dubai. Office manager in Vancouver. Producer at Jerry Springer. Just…random stuff.
Looking back, I feel awfully foolish about this mad methodology, but I was just so hungry to draw a line in the sand that separated college and move on with a career. Sometimes I would find the dream place, and other times the dream job – but never both. When I chose my current career in news (I went from a degree in video production to newspaperdom) I gave up a lot of other things that were important to me.
-I moved ten hours away from my family, friends and work contacts.
-Not only that, but I moved to a town that was far from what I was used to: Asheville, North Carolina. While it is considered a city, it was/is nothing like Philadelphia, the city I left.
-I had no friends and no life, but I had the job.
Completion it was not, but I had at least succeeded in something. Or so I figured. While the job carried out, I resisted “life” for awhile. It wasn’t that life was so terrible in Asheville, but I just could not bring myself to face reality: That with this one decision I made, I had also in turn agreed to a whole slew of others that I was unprepared for.
Then something finally started to click. Where I once saw vacancies in my new life as compared to my old one, I began to gradually incorporate different expectations. I no longer had a train I could take to visit my family, but now I had a new network of people that I would eventually spend Thanksgiving with and dogsit for when they left town. When I would normally text a friend to meet for coffee on a lunch break, now I felt more at ease doing this alone without anxiety or loneliness. My available wardrobe shrunk from the lack of sisterly sharing/stealing and actually, I still haven’t recovered from that blow. The point is that my support system became reinvented. The things I missed – I still miss them – but it isn’t a constant grieving process because I finally realized that there is more than just loss in change.
A year ago, I never would have thought to say this but I feel like one of the lucky ones for sticking it out. There were times, even recently, when the urge to pack up and head for familiar ground was more tempting than any truffled confection or thrift store find that I knew I would never wear but needed to have regardless. So I took the path of most-resistance and I have to say it has paid off. My job has turned into exactly what I was looking for. I have new awesome, intelligent, kickass friends that I can count on for anything and I’ve temporarily traded in my love of a cityscape for a mountain range. And maybe the biggest change of all is in me. I feel a lot more self-assured now than I ever have before.
Whether all of this has paid off in actual dues or I stayed long enough to catch a wave, I don’t know. There’s a lot of room for self-doubt when you remove all of your trusty points of influence. But that’s the point, you never know. Which is pretty freeing once you accept it.
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.