Well I’m back in Beloit and mostly unpacked. I really love the house. It’s the upstairs of a house four blocks off campus, old but well taken care of, with a couple of rooms, lots of helpful closets, a very cute screened porch, and a bright yellow kitchen. Sarah is fun to live with so far, friends helped me move in and some neighbors even came over to help and invite us to go to church with them. It was cute.
Visiting the campus was…weird because of how not weird it was. The sheer number of running hugs I received made me incredibly happy. I happened to move in on Homecoming weekend, which I thought was funny and sort of apt. It was interesting because a surprising number of people had no idea I was moving in, they thought I’d just come for the weekend like the other alums. The problem came when I tried to explain what I am doing here. It ran something like this, “Well, you know, I don’t have a job or any leads really, I’m going to start looking for jobs and looking at grad schools, and Beloit seemed like a more fun place to do that from than home.”
Most people seemed to understand when I put it like that, and everyone said how happy they were that I’d decided to come back, but I still saw (or thought I saw) that look in their eye that said “Really? You came back to Beloit? Really?” and made me feel really pathetic.
But why not? It’s not as if I haven’t done anything after graduation. I had a really amazing internship for four months! I had something to do right out of college, and now I don’t have anything, which is the opposite of a lot of people I know who had nothing all summer and are just now getting things. If I weren’t here I’d just be at home, not that I don’t love my parents or my friends from home, it’s just that there aren’t that many friends left there, they all have full time jobs and they almost all live or work in Minneapolis, which is a frustrating drive or a very long bus ride from Bloomington, as opposed to a whole two clubs worth of friends at least four blocks away, plus the ones living off campus and the ones in Madison, etc. Plus the boyfriend on campus, that doesn’t hurt. Plus if I’m applying to jobs in Madison, Milwaukee, or Chicago it means I can actually interview in person, which is helpful. It might be a little silly and self-indulgent but really, what is being 20-something and having no responsibilities for if not to be a little silly and self-indulgent?
I’m trying really hard not to let feeling pathetic ruin feeling happy. Because I am happy. Happy to see my friends and happy to see Alexander, and happy to see the campus and even the city. Sure, being on campus makes me feel weird right now, because it feels so normal. Bounding down the stairs of AST on Saturday night to the sound of Sig Chi’s stereo blaring Bon Jovi felt just like any number of Saturday nights last year. Sitting around in BSFFA playing chess and making fun of each other made me feel like I was shirking homework and should be sleeping because I probably had an early class the next day. All of this made me feel like I was trying to crawl back into a cocoon that I didn’t really fit in or have a right to anymore, but it also felt so good. It’s not as if sitting on Facebook in my room at home, the same one I’ve had since I was seven months old, with all the pictures on my bulletin board of middle school and high school friends would make me feel less pathetic, maybe just more normal because it’s what lots of recent college grads do, and I wouldn’t have to explain it to anyone (because I would be alone most of the time). That would not be better, it would just be less weird, and it’s not as if I’ve let being weird stop me from doing anything before. This is what I want right now, and it’s only for 3 months and then I will do something else. This is a big thing that’s always been a problem for me: I decide to do something that I want to do and then I freak out and worry that it’s not what I should be doing and try to get approval from everyone around me to make sure it really is okay. That’s stupid and I’m going to try to stop doing that. I’m here and I’m glad and maybe I won’t be later but that’s later and I’ll deal with it then. Woo adulthood!
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