**Warning: Existential Crisis Below**
As my dear friend Calen reminded me the other day, “don’t trick yourself into thinking that if you were in the United States, you wouldn’t be feeling these things, because you would. They would just be different.”
Ok, she was right. And life after college is hard.
Is it hard in the material sense? Ok, no. No, in that sense, I am very blessed. But for me–and this might be different for you–material things are really pretty meaningless. I mean, I like having a house and a roof and shelter and clothing and food–and I recognize that many people do not have these things. But I don’t derive much meaning or sense of purpose in my life from owning things. I’ve always been someone who likes doing things. I get my sense of purpose from trying other things and from making other people happy. Ok, maybe this is not wise.
In my life, I was always surrounded by people who loved me and who often knew me better than I knew myself. I felt safe with these people; I could let my guard down, just be myself, and not have to think about how my behavior was affecting them. I never felt like I was standing on ceremony in my own home.
In college, I worked, but I always stuck to things I was good at, making it easier for me to feel successful at what I wanted to do. I have always shied away from difficult things, because I hate feeling like a failure. I hate messing up.
Ok..but what now? What am I supposed to do with these feelings? Suddenly, I’m no longer surrounded by people who know me better than I know myself. When I came here, literally no one knew me and I knew no one. That means starting completely from scratch. Maybe that’s exciting if you have a lot of baggage, but for me, I left everything I knew behind. And I left everything that was easy behind.
Perhaps I seriously took for granted just how wonderful my previous employers, coworkers, classmates, teachers and friends have been. But more and more I run into blank walls with no instructions, no past experience to draw from, and no one explaining to me how to tackle this. It’s just me.
Ok, and maybe one day when all is said and done and I have a lot of cats and sweaters I will look back at this point in my life and laugh, thinking, “How naive I was. Everything was so easy then!” But at this moment in my life, things are difficult in a way that surrounds and sometimes consumes me, because I can’t walk away from it. I can’t choose not to live, because I don’t like feeling like a failure. I can’t choose not to do this job because I don’t like doing things that are hard and not easy. I suppose I could. But I’m not going to.
I’d really like to know–how have some of you transitioned from a cozy, predictable environment, to a life that’s habitually difficult? How do you deal with the walls?
Another Adventure 