What Do We Do Now?

I met up with M (one of my high school friends) for lunch yesterday and we had a lot of fun together. She's the kind of friend where we just get together and bitch about all manner of things- politics, music, the world in general- for hours and hours.

She's finishing up her last semester of school right now and she's in the torturous process of waiting to hear back from grad schools. She's applied to nine or so and has all ready gotten two rejection letters. Apparently one school was kind of a reach school anyway, but she's still pretty depressed about it,

This friend is really smart, she's got a 3.7 which is very decent and pretty good scores on the GRE (they changed the scoring, so I have no idea what the numbers mean) and she was really involved with student housing stuff, so she's kind of angry that it's been such a torturous process.

Basically, what the conversation came down to is how frustrated we both were that after these years of doing well in school and being involved in shit and trying to build up our resumes, we get to the end and there's no jobs. As my friend said, "I jumped through all of the hoops that you told me too. What the fuck do you want from me?"

I've been feeling that too lately, though in a different way because I am fortunate enough to have found a job and an internship (and though I do spend a good amount of time complaining about my job, I realize that it's not that bad and I'm lucky to even have one).

For me it's like this. Since high school, I've been telling people that I want to be a writer and they've always said the same thing. "Good for you! Follow your dream!" Well, I realized in college that following your dream isn't so easy, especially when your dream is an over saturated non-lucrative career. Which is fine. I came to terms with that before I left college and I know it's not going to be an easy road. I know that I'm going to have to do what it takes to pay the rent while I write.

What's pissing me off is now that when I tell people what I'm doing their first question is, "What are you going to do when your internship is over?" And when I tell them that I don't quite have that figured out yet they say something like, "Well, there's a lot of things you can do besides journalism. A lot of people have careers totally different then what they went to college for."

For fuck's sake, do we have to jump straight to assuming that I'm never going to have a career in journalism? Didn't I just tell you about how I got a degree and had two very hand-ons internships? Why have you all ready decided that I need to go back to school for something else?

It's the same when people ask if I'm going back to school and I say that I'm going to wait a couple of years before I try applying to an MFA program. They immediately say things like, "Most people that don't go back to school right away don't go back at all." Fuck you, man. I don't want to go back to school right now. Honestly, I'm not a good enough writer to go back yet. I know it's not going to be easy, hell, maybe I'll never go back. Maybe this internship will be my last job in writing and I'll spend the rest of my life in an unrelated field. Things like that happen.

But why the fuck do we have to assume failure because I'm not writing for the goddamn New York Times a mere eight or so months out of college? Shit.

I spent my whole life having people telling me that I could be a writer. Now, when I feel like I need some space and time to figure out what to do with my career, they say, "Have you ever considered being not a writer?"

So my question for every adult that has told me I would succeed if I worked hard, got into college and got an internship is, "Okay, done. What do I do now?"

I feel like the pressures of this generation are so different from that of our parents. It's like it's no longer enough to just get a job and take a few years to adjust to the real world out of college. They want a PowerPoint with a goddamn outline of my five year plan every time they ask a question.

Look, I know that I'm probably going to spend years doing completely unrelated/entry level jobs before I get anywhere in this field, if I succeed at all, but I think I'm up to the challenge. At least I'm ready to try.

Writing isn't just a passing fad for me. It's this urge, this very deep and primal thing that I can't ignore. I love writing and, more than that, I have to write. My muse is a manic and impatient being and she does not take kindly to being ignored.

I know that the four of us are going to be sexy, professional women some day with paying jobs in sexy, professional fields. It's just going to take some time.

So everybody get off my damn back, geez. I'm working on it.