Hunt For The Real World

To: Laurie
From: Charlie
Re: Anniversary of Graduation

It is the last night before they graduate; the house has become a bizarre composite of bright eyed adults dancing and soon to be graduated students wandering, a little shell shocked, through the rooms. My cousin and I are waiting for the second table to be set up, and I shamelessly listen to the earnest conversation going on next to me. It's not, the girl is explaining seriously, that I know what I want. I just know what I don't want.

Oh sweetheart, I think, as I help wrestle the table on top of the air hockey setup, you'll be so more than okay. You're already well on your way to figuring this shit out if you know what you don't want.

Later, another girl brushes by me to scoot up next to my cousin. She looks upset.

I don't want to graduate, she tells him as she clutches her solo cup a little too tightly. Her boyfriend is hovering next to me, with the half embarrassed, half resigned look that tells me my cousin is not the first person she has approached like this.

Aw, we'll be okay, he says reassuringly, and pats her on the shoulder. Her chin does that wobbly thing that only happens when you're trying not to cry, and he notices.

Come on now, he says gruffly, don't cry.

She does anyway, and he enfolds her into a rough hug, and rocks her a little, with his cheek resting on the top of her head. We'll be okay, he says over and over, until she hiccups and says, I didn't even cry at a funeral, why am I crying now?

I didn't say anything, but I couldn't stop thinking about the two different girls all through the night, and the gabajillion hours it took for everyone to filter into the stadium the next morning.

I wasn't upset when I left college. I remember being bewildered by my lack of sentimentality, particularly since as a general rule I tend towards maudlin. But it felt like a natural progression, and, despite the crushing awfulness of getting that terrible job rejection the morning of graduation, it felt right to cede my place on the hill to next year's class.

And anyway, I had already said my goodbyes to the school, in the weeks of finals, when I would lock myself in the oldest parts of the school, and spread my books around me under the eaves, and I would leave smelling like old books and filled with an odd, all encompasing affection for everything, but particularly the school.

When I was a freshman and miserable and wanted to transfer, I only called my parents just to hear their voices once. It was a late weekday afternoon, probably around five, I remember the thick yellow light that comes right before it sets, with people wandering all over campus, so when my father answered and my voice disappeared and I started to cry, I had to tuck myself under the old lilac bush that grows next to the library so no one would see me. There are old columns that terrace the hill the library’s built into, and when you sit on them you’re completely hidden from everyone walking by, with the added bonus of an amazing view of the hill and the city beneath it.

Four years later, coming out of the library after it closed, and before I went back to the eaves, I crawled back into those bushes and onto the little columns and spent a good hour, just breathing in and looking at the orange city lights (and I’ll say now I was realizing that it was time to move on and begin Life After College, but to be honest, I probably wasn’t thinking of much of anything besides 'thank god that's done' or 'only ten more pages').

Despite my Zen attitude towards leaving, when I first got out of school, I sort of lost myself. Theoretically, I could do anything I wanted, which was the problem since just about everything interested me. Except that paralyzed me and besides, I wasn't feeling so hot on account of going through seven rounds of intense interviewing and getting rejected at the end while someone else from school got the job instead.

And I took some time off, and I realized all the stress I was feeling –panic along the lines of: NEED TO GET A JOB, NEED TO KNOW WHAT I AM DOING, WHAT DO I WANT, THE REST OF MY LIFE NEEDS TO BE ORDERED RIGHT NOW, HOW CAN I DO THIS, HOLY SHIT PEOPLE ARE GETTING MARRIED I CAN'T GET MARRIED, EVERYONE HAS A JOB AND THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING WITH THEIR ENTIRE LIFE AND I DON'T – was all in my head. Granted, with my ups and downs, it's taken me practically a year before I managed to get myself sorted into anything resembling alright, but it's been kind of exciting.

I'm not going to lie, the real world kind of sucks. You can't blow off work because you had a late one the night before (and while I'll admit I haven't blown class since sophmore year, there was always the possibility), and everything costs so much and work sucks pretty much the whole day from five to seven out of you and meeting people is hard and they're different and play by different rules you don't know and there's not a lot of buffer space between you, your actions and the consequences. You're tired all the time and there's no summer break and Mondays will always be Mondays and it's awfully hard to find someone to pick apart the newest news about the findings on the Dead Sea Scrolls without people thinking you're some sort of fundamentalist, or dissassemble this book or that book intellegently.

But for all the reasons it sucks, the real world is also kind of awesome. You're finally out there and you have the opportunity to learn things and see their application in real time, rather than just academically. There's new people to meet and so many things you can do -- you're not stuck in one place, and going to the same places over and over again -- you can finally dress up in the clothes you have and no one's going to think you're overdressed, and there are so many opportunities if you just look and are open to them.

And I still don't know what I want, not really. I want everything, and some days that overwhelms me. But more and more I know what I don't want. That's the best place to start. And I'm beginning to find out definitely some things that I do, and what is really important and which things are both