3.26.23
While I am met with the end of my college career, and this blog was conceived during a snapshot of my high school finale (how cute and progressive), I face a similar conundrum! One that is not crippling, but looming, A query that does not shove, but pester….
How do I bide my time whilst doing something that is meaningful, active, a workspace with natural light, pays me a living wage, humanitarian, rich in culture, within driving distance to snag a parental embrace, but also preferably another time zone, both mentally stimulating but also values rest, and a boss that is professional but chill enough to help me with tax questions???
From December to February, I had pretty much decided I would be a flight attendant after I graduated. I was so far along the interview process too, got a contingent job offer, then I ended up failing the Dutch comprehension quiz.
“Dutch??? Do all flight attendants speak Dutch??”, you ask. Well, I applied for the Dutch-bilingual position…because, “What does it TRULY mean to be fluent in anything?”, I prepared to argue. Needless to say, as it turns out, you need more than a Dutch au pair vocabulary and barista chit chat to communicate with onboarding passengers on a theoretical flight from Amsterdam. Truthfully, I am not sure if I valued the flight attending profession as a whole or simply the five seconds I could confidently tell someone my post-graduation plans.
I now (semi-confidently) say that I have no idea.
But before, I had felt a lot of compulsion and fixation to configure a plan for my summer months and onward, because as I have had to remind myself time and time again, there are no courses to attend come August! Only complete financial independence, uncharted land, and a small savings fund to look forward to!! And daily, I scribbled, scrolled, and sought out any potential opportunities that fit in my vision for life after college. There were simply not enough articles about expat living to consume, not enough reddit forums about post-grad life to digest, and certainly not enough bottles of Stok cold brew to ease the pain. I tasked myself with all this searching, determined to create my arrangement - and then I fell off a truck and my knee popped out of its socket.
The whole day was really…humbling? That feels like a positive adjective. The day to me was not positive. In fact I felt like a small human who tried hard and failed big. I decided to host a live music x fundraiser for the Women’s Center of Raleigh, a low-barrier female homeless shelter downtown. I corralled three local bands to play for free in my backyard and charge attendees $5 and have it all go to the Center. There was a lot to set up, and luckily I had help! My uncle lent me his big red truck and I felt pretty cool and farm-house-feminine driving that bus around. I picked up two strong neighbors and five massive wooden stages for the bands to perform on. I was overseeing the guys picking up and putting down heavy things, and just as stupidly as it was quickly, I tripped while standing on the side of the truck bed, caught myself on one leg all weird, and popped my knee out of place. Bogus!
“But my comfort doesn’t matter right this second! I want this event to be a success!” , shouted my internal proclamation.
It wasn’t a success.
This event was acknowledged a month, week, and a day prior by the Raleigh Police Department, my neighbors, local businesses, per my verbal and written notice so they could mind the Saturday afternoon noise for a good cause and to ensure amplified longevity and overall policeman brevity.
Needless to say, the colossal front-end effort was ultimately worthless because a smelly cop with a smug face came to shut it down, spoke to me with little respect, and wrote me a $100 ticket. Even after an attempt of patient communication with him, he spat in my yard and whizzed past me on crutches to admonish all my guests. Then he turned around and slapped me in the face.
Okay fine, the last part didn’t happen but metaphorically it did. He kicked everyone out and as people trickled out of my yard, I was left with a flimsy yellow citation and a throbbing leg. I felt so empty. Embarrassed. And those heightened emotions were accompanied by the powerful painkillers I took for my knee, so I could only imagine the water works that would have occurred without them. I did manage to raise $530 for the center though, so I guess that helps soften the blow. But I felt slighted, overlooked, and well kind of a failure.
I’m not saying all this to whine, vent, and boohoo baby cry. I’m only sharing this to convey a minor turning point. And I hate to add a silver lining to the story considering I still have a wonky limp three weeks later. I hate to add a silver lining because it was painful to my ego, my wallet, and my right patella. But ever since this silly injury and even sillier potentially awesome event, I have been only focused on the present day. I can’t think ahead months in advance or be tediously planning, because when does it ever go according to plan?
They say life happens in the moments you are preparing to live. I wish I could have learned this lesson without the physical suffrage, but I reckon I just needed to be physically stunted to learn a lesson. I hermitted hard after this incident. One, because I needed my mom to take care of me, and two, a little speck of shame sat on me like an unwelcome stain, a grease stain, one that I was far too exhausted to scrub away.
I cringe of course thinking about this day, something I thought was going to be beautiful and communal, ended up shriveling up and dying before my very eyes. I cringe thinking about a lot of things that lived and died- the band I was a part of, the live music venues I used to help curate, friendships I used to foster, short relationships with literally any guy I ever opened up to… but these articles of life exist and then they don't. I have found the more you let the burning of these ends consume you, the more you full-body shudder thinking about a bad memory.
You have to literally buck up and move on and remember that nobody ever cares as much as you do.
But yeah, it actually does suck to have someone else help you shower and see you all naked and sad (thank you mom), but it sucks less when you understand you are finally on the other side of something that weighs you down.
I often write my friends little letters, a hello from afar, a thank you from nearby, or an unsolicited mini memoir of sorts. I fill the white space with the latest and most recent events or bouts of thought with little to no listening consent on the other end. This is a highly valued means of communication for me, the stationary! The mail carriers! The inky doodles! It’s all glitz and glamor in my book. But sometimes I feel like I am on to some type of closure, some full circle thought, but next thing I know, my pen trails off the paper and onto the table and I have no more space to finish my thought in the depths it warrants. I smack a stamp on the envelope and wave off whatever near-awakening note or thought I may have uncovered. I think this is probably the saving grace of this platform that makes me feel all the bit more human. Blogging ever-so-slightly unscrambles the array of personal thoughts I have in my journal. So thanks for being here, I should say. There is no word count in the world wide web, yanno!
Thanks for reading my little tale, or skimming it even. Here we applaud half-assery.
Oh and another thing.
I haven’t been going to church lately. And when I say lately, I mean like a year and a half. I'm sure my brother thinks I am a heathen but he should understand that my dissonance doesn’t come from a negative place, it comes from an ambivalent one. I haven’t felt compelled truthfully. I’m confused about a lot of things existentially and I guess I am afraid of being more confused and having more unanswered questions than before. But such is life. I guess I was worried about the crazies that sometimes are at church, but then I realized there are just as many crazies outside of church as there are inside. I finally went this morning. It felt nice and I learned nice things. I’m going to go again next sunday.
My social circle is smaller, my knee bends again, and I finally bought a new journal.
Hip hip hooray!
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