Welcome to my world, ladies and gents. The world where I’m your average 23-year-old, single, struggling female living in Manhattan.
Now typically, people associate young, single females who live in Manhattan with worlds like glamorous, fun, independent, or even sometimes cool. And that’s okay– I used to think these things myself. Back, you know, when I was 15-20 years old.
All until I became one of them. Then every thing changed.
It must’ve been some time when I had moved off campus for my last 2 years of college when I started to face the “harsh reality” of responsibility. Not the kind of responsibility where you need to learn how to clean up after yourself, because most of us learned that one after we first went to college and moved out of our parents’ houses.
I’m talking about the responsibilities that include monthly bills, dealing with landlords who are impossible to contact when the hot water has run out, and most especially, the responsiblity of manning up and taking care of business when a cockroach or rodent decides it wants to move in with you and your roommates. To this day, that one is still always the toughest for me.
It was when I learned these responsibilities that I had to start thinking where my life was headed post college, post crappy apartment in the Bronx, post binge drinking most nights of the week with my friends. And to be honest, I avoided thinking about this as best as I could. Sadly, I got to be really good at it, too. I put in about 10% of an effort into finding a “real” job during my last semester, blew off most of the ones my friends or parents told me to check out, and somehow managed to make a disaster of the approximate 3 interviews I did go on. I was that good, or pathetic, or whichever term you think is appropriate.
Heck, I even fooled myself into forgetting to look for jobs even after I graduated. I went back home for the summer to “recompose,” work my favorite summer job growing up, and find ways to keep avoiding what I had been all along.
Then, with a little help, and a small ounce of will power, I was able to find a way back down. Back down to Manhattan! What I always wanted to do since I was little. And so I did. Yet I did so by returning to my part-time job with the company I worked at while I was in college, and interning with a great company.
The interning was fun and I loved it, but after 6 months, I needed more money so I couldn’t stay any longer. I then agreed to go full time at my part time job, which truthfully made me uneasy. I could foresee my temporary full time position there extending into another 2, 3, maybe 5 years.
It was going to be okay, I told myself. At least I’d have more cash to keep up with my half of the rent, and every thing else I was splurging money on. I believed I would start looking for more jobs aggressively and get things right– that soon enough, I would finally find a job that matched my Journalism and English degree, which I actually worked really hard for. Just how hard I worked for it though was forgotten.
It might seem from the majority of this post that I was always lazy and always unfocused, but looking back, I see that it wasn’t until I was faced with the responsiblity of looking ahead that I lost my ambitious outlook and my entire groove. And by looking back, I mean almost a full year after I graduated. A full year after I took the time to do mostly nothing.
But at some point during this past spring, I started thinking about how much I missed the class part of well, class. The studying, the analysis, lectures, reviews and the discussions of them all. I was always enthusiastic about these things as a student, and I was amazed that I had forgotten.Then I started thinking about how much I enjoyed the volunteer teaching I did with Peer Health Exchange my sophomore and junior years at Fordham. How much fun I had going into high schools and teaching 9th graders about different aspects of health education. And how good I was at it, too.
And then it hit me what I ought to be going after. What I could do to make a good use of my interests, my education, and my general well being. And how I could use these things to help others, and hopefully even inspire them.
It was an overnight feeling that happened during the summer, which took me by surprise. Happily so, however.
It’s this feeling and the whirlwind of purpose I’ve felt because of it that I’m now working on which program I’ll go into or which graduate schools I’ll apply to so I can earn my Master’s in teaching and hopefully in a few years, find a career in the classroom.
Funny how some things are staring right at your face for as long as you can remember, but it takes a long and tough journey to find them. But I guess that’s an upside to being 23 and living in Manhattan.
