I’m starting to wonder if I am going about things in the right way.
I did things pretty quick early on: I went straight from high school to college, straight from college to graduate school, mostly on the urgings of my parents--both of whom dropped out of college at least once and were concerned that if I didn’t get it all done quickly I would never finish even a single degree.
My four years of college were done at a state school fairly inexpensively--except for a semester exchange to England, which was expensive (but not something I’ll ever regret--I loved the traveling, learned a lot from it, and the study abroad was a great way to get out and do it). But my graduate degree (which I finished in 10 months because I was terrified of how much it would cost me to do in the recommended two years) cost about three times what my undergraduate degree did, and I am going to be paying back those loans for quite some time.
I think, if I had it do to over again I might not have jumped so quickly into a graduate program--with a little more looking around I probably could have found some way to not foot quite so much of the cost (I got a couple of small scholarships, but the rest of the money came in the form of loans).
When I finished my graduate program I had two months of being unemployed and worried about it during which I immediately refinanced my loans (and thank goodness I did--I managed to lock in a 2.6% interest rate for the lot of them, which dropped a full percentage point this year with my 36th on-time payment). I went on three interviews and took the first job that was offered to me--making slightly less (before taxes even, gah) than I held in loans for the first year, and getting a 4% raise the year after to make about what I held in loans the second year.
When I got the job I had a pretty serious boyfriend who was a pretty serious waste of time. We had been together in college and somehow I never noticed that he didn’t have much of a work ethic or moral compass--we didn’t have many classes together and he was just so cute and different from me that I sort of glazed over the bad things for the first year we were together. When I went to graduate school he went to work at a private school, as a coach, and got himself fired just before the end of his first season. I was shocked and horrified, emotions that deepened when he went on to blame his behavior and sacking on everyone around him and take none of the blame for himself. We had fight after fight about petty little things that I’d never noticed before, but ultimately we managed to keep it together for the year we were apart.
Which turned out to be a mistake when I got a job and we moved in together.
We had lived together for our last year of college, so I knew what I was getting into, but I had hopes that things would be better--because we weren’t in college anymore, and I wanted to believe that we could be adults now, and clean up after ourselves among other things. Our apartment was decently sized--we got a cheap two bedroom and so had a whole room to use as “storage” --I wanted it to be an office eventually but it was really nice to just have a room to throw stuff in when I didn’t want to look at clutter. It was furnished with a combination of things we had had in college, thrift store finds and things my parents had given me. He never seemed to be able to close a cabinet door or actually throw away any of the packaging for things he ate--and he ate a lot of pre-packaged crap, all of a sudden. He would eat a bag of chips for lunch, or buy those gas station cinnamon buns and eat one for dinner and the other for dessert. I had no idea who he was. I was a vegetarian and pretty serious about health and health-conscious living--before, in college he had at least made an attempt, but now there was something seriously wrong.
While I was working my first professional post-graduate gig, he had gone back a step and gotten a job doing some seasonal work at a local ski hill. Although I wasn’t making much, he was making considerably less than I was, and he knew that his job had a definite expiration date. I started writing all the rent- and living- related checks so that he could build up a savings--only he didn’t, he just bought more crap: videogames, top shelf alcohol, pizza and other food that would be delivered, and several different controlled substances.
When I confronted him about the lack of savings--when he asked me to cover a couple of months bills it was so that he could save up and start looking at graduate school for himself--he raged at me that since I made so much more than he did (kind of an exaggeration, actually, but it was at least a steady pay check) I should be supporting him, it was only fair.
And then I kind of lost it. Even though he was still cute (though at this point a little pudgy), without the filter of college we didn’t really have all that much in common, and it occurred to me that this wasn’t really a relationship I had to be in, or wanted to be in.
I started writing lists; its what I do when I need to clear my mind and think seriously about a decision. He found one such list--I think he may have been poking through my stuff at the time, since most all of my writing was in a single notebook--and a couple of days later we had a huge fight followed by several days of tense silence and then his announcing that he was leaving me, had found a new apartment and would be gone by the end of the week.
I think he expected me to protest somehow, but I didn’t. it was a huge relief.
Then he asked if he could borrow $200 for the security deposit.
I loaned it to him--I should say gave it to him, since to date he still owes me somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for covered rent, security deposit and a cell phone plan that included both of us.
It was quite a learning experience.
Anyhow, when I got that first job, our “plan” was that I would work at it for three years--long enough for that interest rate to drop, and for the two of us to save some money (I have a feeling he still hasn’t saved any money, but I haven’t talked to him in something more than two years at this point--mutual friends say he just had to drop out of graduate school because he owed the school too much money) and then I would quit, or take a leave of absence if they would let me, and we would travel for a year. Because I loved to travel, and he had never been out of the country. With our break up I decided I still wanted to stick to the plan--that I would work for three years, save as much as I could, and then take off for a year of well-deserved rest and travel.
But then I started actively hating my job. I didn’t really realize right off that I was being taken advantage of--I was working 6 days most weeks, sometimes until midnight or one in the morning, I was the office “snow policy” because when the breakup had happened I had left the 2 bedroom apartment behind for one that was ¼ of a mile from my job. After a couple of months of keeping this schedule I started to sort of look around and realize I’d put myself in a hell of a position. So I started using my late-night stints at work to look for new opportunities. I found one and applied for it, but when I did my second interview (the first was a phone interview, so I didn’t get to see the place until the second time around) I realized that the office culture was much like the place I was already working, so I decided to stick it out.
Then, as often happens, I met a guy. A good one this time: he was a vegetarian, health conscious, interested in a lot of the same things I was: organic agriculture, sustainability, zombie movies and post-apocalyptic fiction. And he was working in a similar field…two states away.
We started spending the weekends I wasn’t working together, and I started looking for jobs in the same state he was in.
I found one, and when I interviewed, mid-way through my second year at my first job, I discovered that it was perfect. So much more laid back, so much more time-flexible, so much better paid. I interviewed three times and then the manager called to tell me they had decided to go with someone else.
I was heartbroken. I called the boy and sobbed. He tried to consol me, wrote a very nice email about how he planned to be with me a long time--even though I was still two states away--and that he had started looking at jobs in my state as well.
It was so sweet and gave me renewed hope.
Then two days later the manager called again, to ask me if I might still be interested in the job. Something had happened with the first choice candidate, and she said if I didn’t take it they were going to re-open the search and get a new batch of applicants. I accepted on the spot.
I let my old manager know he was about to be my old manager and he took it really well and gave me a really decent time table for the transition.
I didn’t take any time off between jobs, I finished on a Friday, moved over the weekend and started the new one on Monday. And it was good. The people were nice, the pay was decent and the hours were fantastic.
It occurred to me at this point that I wasn’t going to be able to stick to my timetable: it would be almost impossible--I liked it and I had only just started. I couldn’t give it up after only a year, it just seemed unthinkable.
Plus it felt a little like things falling into place: a great guy, a great job, a great new apartment, though not with the guy--we had agreed that that was too far too fast--but everything was pointing toward our continuing to be serious, moving toward having a future together.
But then of course, nothing ever stays that way for long.
The boy in question has let me know he is planning on moving on--going to New Zealand for awhile, then traveling around a bit after that possibly. He’s not sure when he is coming back so he thinks we should break things off. He thinks we’re in different places right now: that I am settled and have a career, and that he just wants to travel for awhile.
I want to scream and shake him sometimes.
But part of it is right, I have sort of fallen into a career--and I’m wondering--am I going to feel like I’ve been trapped here? Am I going to regret not chucking it all and seeing the world while I’m still in my 20s and all my joints work properly?
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