it is june and here is how you spend your days:
people lavish you with praise and gifts and congratulations and balloons. your loved ones swell with pride, post pictures of you on facebook, talk about how far you've come. you indulge them and try to focus on the happy moment that this is.
that isn't to say that you're free from the cynicism of other graduates.
//wow,// you think, //four years of trials and tribulations have culminated in a fancy piece of paper that I haven't even gotten in the mail yet.//
but you haven't ever done anything like this before. you watched your friends and family in their fancy robes and you thought that someday you'd be the center of attention. because - here's the thing - you love attention almost as much as you say you hate it.
under the guise of recovery, you take the time to lay around on the couch even as you're meant to be packing your things.
//it's fine,// you think, //i deserve this.//
//i do,// you also think in the back of your head, //but that isn't how it works.//
people ask you what you're going to do, and you give a vague response. there's an answer you'd like to give. and it's not that one that you tell people.
[[july]]
it is july and here is how you spend your days:
you still have your job on campus, but even now there's this creeping feeling like you're an intruder in this space now. you run around trying to make it seem like you know what you're doing, like you feel like you're part of this. and it works to some extent. it may only be a distraction from your concerns for now, but at least you're doing something.
you still see your friends, you still have a life outside of work. things seem fine now, but when you try to turn your mind to the future, to august or september, everything goes blank.
//a job,// you tell yourself, //you need to think about a job.// But that's the furthest thing from your mind. You already know whatever you'll be doing will never be as good as this, or as good as the job you have dreams about.
in your free time you watch //a lot// of tv.
you don't know where you're going to live in the fall. you're subletting a room in a basement for now. you live alone for the first time in your life. there are spiders and it's kind of scary coming home to at night, but at least the tile floors are cool on your feet.
most of your things are in a storage unit that you can't get to without someone driving you there. you've lied awake at night once or twice thinking about someone breaking in and taking everything you own and you wouldn't even know until september.
you have a surgery coming up soon and the looming threat of medical bills means things don't get fixed or replaced. your bike is broken. your glasses are broken. your computer and guitar are broken but still struggling to function for you. it begins to feel like you don't deserve anything nice. (and you don't know this now, but when you move again in august, you're going to realize that your mattress has mold on the bottom.)
you are always thinking about money these days.
[[august]]
it is august and here is how you spend your days:
you work the last days of your job - at least until a brief reunion in september - and you live on the floor of a friend's apartment for a few days. neither of you enjoy this very much. at this point, essentially all of your belongings except for your clothes, computer, and medicine are in the storage unit. you don't have your guitar or any of your books.
oh, and you found out about that mold in your mattress and that doesn't feel great.
after a tense car ride to the station, you take the train to your hometown. it's an exhausting 16+ hour trip that you've made time and time again, you're glad when it's over, but the ride itself is colored by the worry that maybe it won't be like this again. real grown-ups don't get the kind of vacations that students get, and after all that is what you're going to be now.
after you get home, august is dreamt away in long naps and watching too many episodes of Friends. part of this is post-graduation malaise, but at least you have the excuse of recovering from the surgery you had in the middle of this month.
you had vague ideas of writing that novel you've wanted to write forever in the month you'll spend doing nothing. but the actual sitting down and writing process keeps getting pushed to tomorrow, and then tomorrow again.
because moving to a new city is too scary, you half-heartedly plan for your return to your college town, trying to coordinate with friends whether or not you'll live with them and where - and how much will you be able to afford on rent not knowing exactly what it is you'll be doing or how much you'll make.
slowly, you build your strength back up. you've figured out where you'll live. you're learning to drive finally (because you've always been a late-bloomer) and you feel like maybe you'll be able to function like a real adult when you are called on to do so in september.
[[september]]
it is september and here is how you spend your days:
until now, you hadn't set a date for your return, but now you've gotten the distinct feeling like maybe it's time to leave your parents' house. a date is set. it approaches. you spend time with your family, you can't savor the time that you still have with them. you're always counting the days until you have to face reality and build a new life.
you move in to your new place back in your college town. your family helps you retrieve your things, and it is comforting to be settled in one place. but that feeling of stability is pulled out from under you when your family drives off.
you've had this feeling before - every time they visit and have to go back home. you are reminded of the day that they abruptly left after moving you into the dorm for the first time. you cried in the dining hall over a bowl of apple sauce because you didn't want your new roommate to see you like this. at least now you've got your own room to cry in.
now it's on you to find your first real grown up job.
//how hard can that be?// you wonder.
[[october]]
it is october and here is how you spend your days:
you send resumes out into the void and receive only radio silence in return. well, there was one time, you were awoken from your slumber by a prospective employer who wanted a phone interview and you said 'yes' despite the fact that you were barely awake. it went poorly and you did not hear back.
desperately, you try to think of something that you could do to supplement your sparse income. //i make things, surely there's someone who needs me to write something for them?// you wonder optimistically for split second before the thought is shut down. you'd have to have some facsimile of self-esteem to entertain the idea any longer than that.
your application output is poor. you aren't //not// applying for jobs, but you frequently complete most of an application and then decide that you can't do it.
questions like 'who are you,' 'what do you want to do,' 'where are you going,' 'what makes you happy' are now more crucial than ever to answer, but you draw a blank. 'what are you capable of?' you don't //know//. you read and re-read lists of required qualifications, and you think, //can i do that? can i do anything?// you think back on every job you've ever had and berate yourself for not taking on more.
you hear nothing back from anyone. working on borrowed time you spend 10 hours a week working in an office with people who want to see you do better and move on, and you feel constantly as if you're betraying them.
you only talk to one friend, and you fear that she's starting to understand that that's the case.
you spend money that you don't actually have in order to eat and you will think about the debt that you're in later.
the one thing that you've got going for you is that you have a ~~fucking ancient~~ car now, but you're still learning to drive.
[[november]]
it is november and here is how you spend your days:
congratulations: on the same day that you fail your driving test, you find out that you have a UTI. also, the anti-biotics they give you will most definitely make you throw up several times over the course of this week.
you still don't hear anything back about jobs for a few weeks, but then there is a day when you receive 3 physical letters from prospective employers who put a lot of effort into telling you that you didn't cut it.
the day before you turn 22, you have to renew your learner's permit with the same DMV employee who failed you. happy birthday, fuck-up.
the one shining light in this dark time is that you get to go home for thanksgiving and see your family. the visit is short, and you definitely cry when it's over, but you drink gin and tonics with your family and you see your aunts and uncles and cousins again for the first time in two years. and there is hardly any fighting.
you were thinking of doing NaNoWriMo, but november was over by the time you remembered.
[[december]]
it is december and here is how you spend your days:
you're still applying for jobs, but you put that on the back-burner for now because you figure you aren't going to have much luck during the holidays. also, you had a monumentally terrible job interview last week where a person asked you why you wanted the job and you opened your mouth and it made a croaking noise instead of words.
on the plus side, your non-employment related life is alright. you've heard the most amazing album. it's not just music, it's a story of a man who had these wild dreams and he worked and worked and worked and made something of himself. you listen to it over and over, trying to internalize the words. you see how it makes other people feel like they can be someone. you want to make something as beautiful as that.
you go home again for the holidays, and this time you stay with your family for several weeks. you even go on a road trip together and all the while you manage to ignore that countdown clock in your head that has always screamed at you 'this joy is fleeting.' you have an unadulterated good time for once in your life.
new year's eve rolls around, you and your family are watching tv in a hotel room. and you drink and eat and drink and eat and you call your best friend at midnight and wow you even sound happy on the phone. per family tradition, you run outside and scream into the night like you've done every year since you can remember.
tomorrow - sorry, today - is the new year - sorry, this year.
[[january]]
it is january and here is how you spend your days:
that album that you love is starting to sting every time you hear it. you have to make rules about when you're allowed to listen to it, or you'll just cry along to it all day. it's hard to hear about someone who started with nothing and made a name for themselves when you started with so much and squandered it. they made something game-changing. you get this feeling that anything less is failure.
the vacation is over and you return home to the daily rhythm of arriving at your part-part-time job, working a few hours, going home, crying, and failing to market yourself desirably to employers.
a bright light on the horizon glimmers - you pass your second driving test. you feel as though you've taken another step toward being a fully fledged adult.
but you still feel like there is //something// wrong with you. what is it about you that is so unappealing that people know that they don't want to hire you before you even meet them?
you've begun to apply for anything and everything, even jobs that you know would drain you of all your energy and will to live. you are starting to be very conscious of that credit card debt that you are racking up every time you need to buy groceries.
something has to change.
[[february]]
it is february and here is how you spend your days:
still under-employed, barely scraping by, you have decided to make the most of your time. you apply all the energy that you can toward that book you've been meaning to write since you were 16; it is slow-going, but you are coming back to it week after week. maybe you'll never finish it, maybe it'll never get published, but you've got something to hold on to at least, when someone asks what you're doing these days.
you start seeing a therapist - you've been putting it off for months now. she tells you to be kinder to yourself, gives you the tools to challenge your negative thoughts and irrational beliefs about your self-worth.
you practice and practice and practice, and it's very hard, but maybe you're going to be fine? yeah... maybe.
[[march]]
it is march and here is how you spend your days:
you get a job interview. and then another one, and at the end of that one, you are given an offer.
so this is it - you finally made it. you have a job. you are working for a Big Brand Name, and you are running around putting items on shelves and asking people if they are having a good day and a pride burns inside of you to be doing //something// again. you meet people and you talk to them and you have steadily more friends with every passing day.
some days are bad but you bounce back. you are an adult with a job who drives to work and buys groceries with actual money again instead of the promise of money. maybe this isn't permanent, but it will get you to the next step. after all, now you can keep looking for the job you //really// want with the comfort of already having one.
you still have time to write, and you scribble down as many notes as you can with the energy you have left after work.
[[april]]
it is april and here is how you spend your days:
it's been less than a month, but you need out. you have begun to realize what everyone around you knew but was not forthright with - these people whose groceries you ring up do not look you in the eye. they do not listen. they do not see you. if you could do the same things and be a computer, they wouldn't notice. maybe they'd prefer that.
every outrageous price, out of stock item, technical difficulty - that's //your fault.// every mistake made on these grounds is your responsibility. a man yells at you about toothpaste in front of his sleeping infant daughter.
you go home and you are kept awake by the thought of the conveyor belt that won't stop moving, sending customers' purchases tumbling to the floor as you stutteringly try to apologize.
a wall of greeting cards in the middle of the store advertises that mother's day is coming, but your own mother has stopped talking to you for now. you send her a card anyway. you write nothing in it. you hope that she understands what she's made you feel during this, the most horrible week of your life. she won't.
that's what you want to tell everyone when they scream at you and try to tell you that you're a fuck-up or say that you're cheating them. you want to tell them everything because maybe they'd pity you even the least bit. you used to hate being pitied, now you only wish someone would.
you still work at your other job, in that office where people want you to do better and are rooting for you. that's the job you tell people about when they ask you what you do these days.
you've stopped writing your book.
[[may]]
it is may and here is how you spend your days:
it's all more of the same. you wake up. you go to work. you come home. you drink a glass of wine. you sleep.
you try to break it up by spending some time with your best friend, but both of you are so tired and it feels like your heart's not in it. you try not to read hostility into everything she says, but what can you do? that old social paranoia is chugging along towards you and you're bound to the train tracks.
your mother texted you "i miss you" and you told her you never went anywhere. you start talking again. slowly.
you made a new friend at work who understands everything. maybe that's the only good thing you've done since who knows when.
[[june again]]
it is june again and here is how you spend your days:
your office job ends as funding runs out. no one was there today except you. you walk home in tears. you wanted this last day to be special, and you wanted to be able to say that you'd found something better.
your brother is graduating from grad school. your family visits you on the way up to see him. you cannot go with them because you have to make enough money not to sink further into debt. the whole time they are here, you are thinking about work. you have to work every day that they are here. and after they leave, you go back to work again and have to bite down on those feelings that you always have when they're gone.
everyone is graduating. people younger than you are moving on to the next big thing. they look happier than you did even then. you see pictures and pictures of people who are embarking on these amazing adventures. they aren't unafraid, but they seem to have some idea of what direction to start in, even if the end-goal is not readily apparent. they wanted something. what do you want?
you think about that more and more these days. what do you want? you like making things. you love telling stories. you've never finished anything. and even if you did, you'd be terrified of showing anybody.
you listen to a podcast by some strangers who play games and tell stories and live lives that are seemingly mundane, but they create in people's minds the kinds of beautiful worlds that you wish you were capable of. but you aren't like them, you think. they wanted something and they went for it. you can't do that. you haven't ever finished anything.
you sleep longer than you need to. you don't leave the house as much on days when you don't have to. you can't shake those negative thoughts that your therapist has been trying to help you get rid of. worse, you've stopped trying.
you want to be a creator of beautiful worlds that other people care about. you want to make a living doing things that don't kill you slowly the way almost everything else does. you don't see that as possible the way things are now. you aren't that person. maybe you won't be anyone except this hollow shell who can tell you what aisle the protein bars are on.
[[july again]]
it is july again and here is how you spend your days:
you woke up one morning and you felt that swelling nausea within you that you often feel on days that you're scheduled to be a cashier - easily the most painful experience you go through on a weekly basis. you sit at your desk, for hours, mulling over whether or not to call in sick. because you do feel very sick - maybe it is born from those dizzying thoughts in your head - but you feel as if this is the end.
but you don't want to hear that disappointed tone on the other end of the phone. you don't want to stay working for this nightmare corp, but you don't want them to give you the boot either. you've pondered often whether you couldn't just stop showing up.
in the midst of your internal dialogue, something amazing happens. you receive a phone call from work, saying that your shift has been cut. from a financial perspective, this is usually an unwelcome surprise, but you feel a sort of high. that nausea goes away. you have an energy that cannot be squandered.
you do what you always promise yourself you'll do on your day off. you open your computer, and you write. and you keep writing. and the next day, your shift is cut again, and that means things will be tough this month, but you write again. you don't finish anything, but that doesn't matter. you've taken back that thing that has both been your dream and the failure that haunts you.
on tuesday, you go back to work and when you come home again, you write some more.
[[i am a writer->.]]
you have written every day this week. you sometimes stay up late into the night writing. you write when a week ago you would have laid in bed, only taking in the world around you instead of acting on it.
you are a writer. you change your twitter bio to reflect this.
you have spent so much of your life telling yourself that you cannot be that until you are published or until X, Y, or Z source refers to you with that word.
you have spent the last year waiting to become something or to have a purpose handed to you in the intermediate. you have felt like a rough draft of yourself.
[[so what?->..]]
exactly.
now that you have started writing again, you have learned not to be embarrassed about your rough drafts. no idea springs into the world fully formed and no person does either.
just as you are taking the time to get to know your characters and build the bare bones of a fictional world, you are taking the time to get to know yourself. what parts are going to stay? what parts are going to change? you know now that you can't know until you put in the time.
[[this is the beginning of something.]]
it is the second summer since you have graduated from college and here is how you will spend your days:
[[>>]]
you will be fine.
END.
~~and look, you finished something~~
^^HOW YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS^^
a quasi-autobiography in twine by a writer who doesn't get paid to write.
[[start->June]]
sure, some beginnings are bad. read every first book from a prolific author and try to imagine if they are happy with it still. but every one of them had to write a first book.
you are remembering what your therapist taught you, and you are banishing those negative thoughts and those irrational beliefs about your self-worth.
[[i will remember->...]]
you will make beautiful things that turn ugly in your eyes over time. and you will look at those ugly things and know how to do them better next time.
[[>>->2]]
you will show people what you're proud of and what you're ashamed to be proud of.
[[>>->3]]
you will forgive yourself for your mistakes. everyone else does.
[[>>->4]]
you will not be afraid of the rough drafts you write and are.
[[>>->5]]
you will remember how much you've done, even if no one else does.
[[i will write->you will remember how much you've done, even if no one else does.]]