Post Collegiate Blues

Fruit flies live their whole lives in a day, and bad haircuts last forever. In a similar time/space continuum conundrum, college students, around the time graduation is approaching, go through a similarly bizarre aging process. During the month prior to graduation, each college senior, despite four years of aging and experiencing, becomes a freshman again. You begin drinking as if you've never been allowed alcohol before. You begin to worry about the most basic of things. Did you pick the right major? Did you pick your major for yourself or your parents? What do you do with that girlfriend/boyfriend you aren't going to marry? How the hell did you accumulate all of this crap?

But, like the freshman, who is moving away from home for the first time, these fears are easily abated with enough partying and school sponsored events to distract any intelligent human being. And before you can sing along to that alma mater you didn't even know that you had, you have your diploma, and have convinced yourself that you are actually happy about it. You don't have to answer to deadlines or professors. You are free to do whatever you want. True Freedom! The world is your oyster. You are a college graduate. Then: you pack. And mommy and daddy are there to help. You are very 22, hiding oddly shaped pipes used "only for decoration, mom. Remember, I was a Native American Studies minor for a while sophomore year?"

Regression

A few days later, you're home, and somehow you're sixteen again. You moved home from home. A home self-created to one created for you. You're fighting with your siblings, explaining broken curfews, eating like a pig, and you realize: You can't live at home. This isn't even your home. And you realize: YOU HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO. This isn't summer vacation. You will not return to school in the fall. You have nowhere to return to. Are you really going to sign up at the gym near your house? That's a major commitment. Are you really going to come back here after you backpack around Europe with your frat buddies, or go on that Bike and Build Trip with your junior and senior year girls?

You can go anywhere, but you have nowhere else to go. When did that happen? It's scary. It's depressing. It's all consuming. It's freedom in straightjacket. And that's okay. There are those among us who cheat our way through this process. They know what they want to do, and just start doing it. Some call these people motivated. I call them assholes. They go to Med School, or Law School. Remember, some of these kids did this out of fear, and those among them who did it for "all the right reasons" are simply better than us. And that's okay too. You can justify your superiority in a million different ways.

You may be unemployed, not know what you are going to do with your life, sleep 'til noon, and go out drinking with your buddies every night on your mother's credit card, but at least you're not addicted to speed, like you're sure all of those crazy med students are. There are those who really cheat, and do "good for humanity" activities straight out of school. They join the Peace Corps, or Teach for America (both wonderful programs and I highly suggest that you look into them. They help you pay off your loans, not to mention give you invaluable life experiences). These do-gooders are simply postponing the existential dilemma, which I am now about to describe for you in great detail. They are not avoiding it. They are going to up the ante on it when they finally return from saving the world one person at a time.

I'm a College Graduate, Now What?

So, nowhere to go. Anywhere to go. An open cage if you will. (By the way, that cage comes with home cooked meals). The question is, now what? Your life until now had been given meaning in a hand basket. You knew why you did everything To Graduate. Throughout this process, you were handed deadlines. If you didn't like a class, it was over in sixteen weeks. Everything came in finite forms. Semesters, fall breaks, winter breaks, school years, four years. You knew when this step ended and it could therefore take shape in those terms. And now, there is no end. Suddenly, you're spiraling out of control. The next end that you see is death and it's while you're serving fries to your high school buddies at the local Hardee's. You start saving up money for the wife or husband who you don't have, and for the kids' college fund, wondering, what am I doing with my life? Why am I doing this? What the hell am I doing this for?

And this is what you realize. You have been programmed to ask yourself the wrong questions. The questions you have asked yourself to this juncture are either hedonistic or scholastic, and neither of these motifs is going to illicit answers for you any more. You need to find a new Who, What, Where, When, Why, and Why the hell not? They have to be questions that you write yourself. You have to remember every cliche that has ever come your way, and learn to apply them in the right moment. There are some that always work. "The best revenge is a good life" (Anonymous). "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read" (Groucho Marx).

But please, do be careful. Applied at the wrong moment, a cliche goes from formula to poison. And in the moments of deep despair, breathe. Remember that Kafka worked in a patent office, and Shakespeare did it for the money. Nothing is ever as romantic as it seems. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems, and no matter how bleak the road seems, you do have something that can never be taken away from you: an education. Find power in that. You are ready. You just aren't capable yet. And that's just a detail. With tenacity and luck, we'll all be fine. Figure out what you want, and go for it. The bad days will come, but they'll go, too. Every step is a step forward. And if it's backward, just turn around and start a new direction. Soon, you're moving forward again.

Remember your mother's words, or at least Bob Dylan's: take your time, because "the slow ones now will later be fast". No matter how quickly you jump through the hoops to get from student-hood to all that lies beyond, you will stop aging at post-collegiate speed at some point. And a day will be a day, a week a week, and a year far too short a period of time.

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