3 Months Post Grad…
If I were to have started this post about a week ago, it would have had a very different tone I think that summarizes how quickly things can change for someone in the months following post-grad.
Your 20s are hard. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again for the people in the back. Your 20s are hard.
What’s really hard is having to live the early part of your 20s amidst a global pandemic, And yes, it’s even harder when you are adjusting to living with your parents after years of living away, and being unemployed, single, and yes, still in the middle of a global pandemic.
As if that isn’t bad enough, being on social media is as common as breathing at this point. So, not only is one being forced to watch others thrive I get to do it as my life crashes and burns before me. Dramatic yes, did we expect anything else from me?
And if you are on Linkedin? Well, let’s just say LinkedIn and I have had a love-hate relationship over the last few months. It loves to provide me with job recommendations I am underqualified for and I hate scrolling through to see everyone else’s job posts. (Not actually, I have loved seeing all my friends become employed and I’m so proud of you all). But, in reality, the career path I chose is less stable and more likely to be freelance or based on day rates, so LinkedIn, after a while, really did start to affect my mental health.
So, here I am. No car, no job, no personal living space, and with my whopping 3 friends at home, life post-grad was going as well as it sounds. So not very. Now let’s throw a widowed grandparent into the mix. My parents were on their way to becoming empty-nesters with the little sister heading off to college and their oldest planning to move out soon.
Enter stage left - Nana.
I know everyone has that one character in a family. But I guarantee you, none of them are quite like my Nana. We love her, of course, you can’t not. But — that doesn’t mean we have to like her all the time. She brings with herself a lot of drama (and not the kind that one would have compassion for because she is widowed). The drama is more or less a type of recurring overexaggerated and unnecessary theatrics. So now, I am moved back into my childhood bedroom in a house with both of my parents, my little sister, my grandmother, and of course our beloved dog, Prince.
And that is just the surface of some of our challenges. Rides need to be figured out, fights turned into screaming matches, doors slammed and many alcoholic beverages were poured (don’t get me wrong we love each other but we are Italian and this is how we solve things, by screaming and drinking). But the stress of life post-grad is real for many and definitely doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
But here’s the funny thing about life. It moves pretty quickly.
And just like how college seemed to pass in a blink of an eye, these past few months of stress and unemployment seem to have as well. And don’t get me wrong, it freaking sucked. But summer is coming to an end, it looks like my job status is changing to employed and I am happy to say that I will be moving out of my parent’s house *insert cheers here* and into New York City. And sometimes, life comes at you from the most unexpected places, and those places can be even better than what you expected.
At the end of the day, no one can prepare you for the real world. Or even the fake real world. No matter how hard they try. Make the most of it, and remember that life goes on, with or without you. How you move in it is up to you, so you can either sit and wallow and wish for the good old days of college like me. Or you can work hard, keep moving on, keep searching and keep trying to get to your end goal, like me.
Now, if anyone knows of any single men looking to date in NYC, hit my line. What, you think I was able to get it all together? Come on, you should know me well enough by now to know only one part of my life can be going right at a time. At least, that’s what my Co-star astrology app keeps telling me.
