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| Relay for Life, Spring 2013 |
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| Songfest, Spring 2012 |
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| PC '11, IRD 2014 |
My FOMO (fear of missing out) was at an all time high. Thank goodness for Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and text message updates. Things you take for granted as an active, seem to have a deeper meaning as an alum.
"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place. Like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you''ll never be this way ever again." - Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
I don't feel like anyone can fully prepare you for what comes after college. Graduating is hard. Not graduation with the cap decorating and walking across the stage but rather the act of graduating and what that means. For the past 4 years you've worked towards learning, earning and achieving your goal- finishing your degree and receiving your diploma. But no one explains what comes next.
Which is sitting on the sidelines while you watch life pass you by. The job search- while you aren't the first person to ever do it- it is entirely your journey and therefor it's groundbreaking. While I am one to daydream and daydream often: what to say, what to wear, how to act- I don't often daydream about the NOW, the real deal. For example, I knew college would eventually come to an end... I daydreamed and pinned(gotta love Pinterest) mortar board designs and what to wear on the BIG DAY... I never thought realistically about walking across the EJ Thomas Hall stage and getting my diploma (which is good cause it came in the mail a month later). So now I'm living in the NOW. I can't daydream of ideals or the future because I'm still working to find an entrance to the dream. I don't have the safety or luxury of the 4 years in one place simply learning and thriving that college brings. Being solely in the present is challenging. Being there alone is terrifying.
In a goodbye letter from my best friend she wrote, "I'm kind of in this weird limbo where I KNOW you didn't die, but like, I don't know Akron without you, so at the same time it's kind of like you died." And really it does feel like that. Not to skip to the end or be insensitive to the actual dead. But that's how it sometimes feels like I died, or rather a part of me did. And I suppose Nafisi is right, "you'll miss the person you are now at this time". I graduated in December, 4 months ago... and yet I feel as if it's been years. It could be that I now live 2 1/2 hours away from my home away from home or it could be that because I was enjoying this hiatus from the real world, and thus only just recently started to care about the days of the week again. So while I've been alone treading this new path towards my post grad, KJB adult life- my friends have been together doing what I've come to deem as normal and easy. We're at two different stages in our life paths.
"What I'm trying to say is that wonder can often run parallel to loneliness." - Caroline Calloway
So I've started to find solace in the work of Marina Keegan and the life of Caroline Calloway.
Millennial darlings with incredible stories and fascinating inspirations.
Calloway quoted David Foster Wallace in one of her blog posts, "the reason we have books is so that we feel less lonely." She goes on to say, "social media often has the opposite effect and makes everybody feel more lonely." How true that is. It's the main reason FOMO is such a popular acronym, that and Lord (Scott) Disick.
Saudade: a longing or nostalgia for something you never had.
So while I'm forging ahead on this path, whenever I check my social media, to see my friends- I'm always hit with saudade, wishing for something that never was.
Being a grown up is hard. But I take comfort in knowing no one else knows what they're doing either.
xo,
KJB
I take great comfort that everything will be alright when in the end.
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