At the beginning of this semester (oh, crap! Adult life doesn’t happen in semesters!). Scratch that, at the beginning of this past season (or is it phase? section? chapter?), nevermind, at the end of the summer, my life faced a little implosion. Fresh off the plane in America after taking a big risk by serving overseas, my plans were upended by financial and spiritual struggle. Plans that were once set in stone now splintered like wood under an ax. My career aspirations split into several camps, like warring tribes of ideals in my own head (not exactly what you’d like to hear from a recent college graduate that, after showing up back at home, should have some inkling of a career path). All the things I “should” have had: the internship hours, the work experience, and the extracurriculars that lead right to that modern fantasy of the ideal “adult life.” College felt like an incubator, protecting me with a shell of security as I soldiered on toward receiving that golden ticket of a diploma. Instead, I came out a soft, sickly yellow egg, only half-baked, dragging with me an extraordinarily expensive piece of paper. Unfortunately, there is no reentering after exiting the birth canal of graduation. Life has officially started.
Yet I still cling tightly to the inside of my egg, still surrounded by the protective reality created by undergraduate attitudes. I try to ignore the cracks that form in the shell that protected me from the barbs of real-life as the demands of a world that, despite all the “preparation” I was supposedly getting, served to help me rest inside my yolk., suckling on the last remains of that membrane we like to call “liberal arts.”
Yet I wouldn’t trade it away for anything. I wouldn’t be the same person without college, not because of the utility of it, but the more intangible abilities involved in developing connections with people irrespective of their value in setting me on the path toward a specific career or attaining financial stability. It helped shape who I am and challenged me to think outside of the boxes I had created for myself (all whilst remaining ironically inside of a box).
As a slightly non-traditional student, I spent the first two years embedded in academic work, quietly hidden behind a computer screen as I tried to obtain that mythic 4.0. The fact that I was able to finish the last couple seasons of The Office during finals week should not be counted as academic brilliance, but a severe case of social stasis. College posed a two-fold problem to me, indicative of the nature of the two different institutions I attended. I dove straight into academics at my junior college, and upon arriving at university, discovered how small my world had become. For me, this lack of patience and fearlessness ended with me, at the beginning of my Junior year, “starting over” just in time for my college experience to almost be over. Those last two years embodied the paradoxical experience that liberal arts college represents. While supposedly preparing me for a “career” through a generalized set of skills, I sacrificed the ideal “work-experiences” that cast a shadow over nearly any job applications. While establishing relationships with students and faculty, I missed out on other forms of “networking” (a term which retains an inherent ickiness for me) with a specific career field. My extracurriculars, with a mind toward “expanding” myself, have actually served to limit the kinds of opportunities I can apply to. That dissonance between my academics and my personal endeavors seem only to confuse people looking for candidates they can snugly fit into a pre-fabricated position.
College reminds me of a great book, that despite all the praise and adoration showered on it, cannot be dissected effectively. It cannot be balanced with sets of weights. It cannot be added to an equation or judged by a set of statistics. As soon as you try to grasp at an absolute value, it slips through your fingers again. All the while it sinks a little farther into memory, evermore unclear in its purpose. College is a time for transformation and can be a catalyst for enormous growth. Unfortunately, I never gave myself to time to discover how to put that transformation to work. Sometimes, the pain of solace (which, while effective to encourage me to write and share pieces like this, pierces deeper than a knife), makes it hard to remember any detail about my undergraduate experience that changed me. In these times of forgetfulness, I feel the weight of its shadow, which, unclear and foggy, constitutes a more oppressing substance in its absence.
Sometimes, I simply want to run after some wayward and simple dreams, irrespective of the training I received. To learn to be a carpenter in New England, a miner in West Virginia, a deep-sea fisherman across the Atlantic, or a cow-herder in some far-off country. One of my favorite songs, by the band The Head and the Heart starts with a simple line, “I wish I was a slave to an age-old trade/ Riding along railcars and working long days.” College’s greatest burden is the weight of ambition. Often, more than anything, I wish I could be freed from that expectation of success. The reminders about my “potential,” although intended as thoughtful and true statements of my ability to grow, now elicit soft pangs with every memory. Why must I be so filled with the need to find purpose and the spectre of “potential”, when all I really need right now is a job?
Today, though, there remains hope that someday it will be worth it. One thing college teaches you is that a moment is just that, a moment, and we are not defined by one day or one season. Mistakes are not death sentences and life does indeed go on. A season of struggle does not decide your direction, and in the midst greatest times of conflict and uncertainty, the seeds of success are being sown. Facing rejection and regret can be steps toward a brighter future. Returning to my egg metaphor, that shell, which, dim and discolored as it appears, may be the key to that future. The very unpreparedness I resent could enable me to see the world through different lenses, not limited to one path toward fulfillment. Life is short, but it’s also wide. Possibilities still lie on the horizon, and it might take some time to find my path again. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t appreciate the journey, with all of its peaks and pits. Like all great stories, something’s bound to go wrong. All I can do is get to work writing the next chapter.
An Ordinary Adventure 