Launch: Here We Go

So. I'm finally getting out on my own. A friend of mine and I signed the lease for our new apartment and have been slowly moving all our crap over for the past week or so. During this week my parents have been away, so I've had a little time to reflect and sort of ease myself into the idea of being out in the real world.

I'm not doing a very good job so far. I haven't even started packing yet, and it was my idea to do this whole blog thing, and I've been putting off actually writing it all week. I'm not sure why, either. Maybe because if I start looking through my things and putting down my thoughts on...well not paper, but typing them out, at least, then it will be real. I have a terrible problem with procrastination. I figure if I avoid things then I won't have to deal with them. Which, of course, always backfires terribly because things build up and then I'm scrambling at the last second to get a thousand things done. I really need to pack. And my parents will be home in about fifteen minutes!

But anyway, the point of this blog is to talk about my journey into adulthood or whatever. I'm 23 years old, I graduated from college in May (after four years, an extra semester, and a summer class), and I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. During college I looked forward to graduation with a mixture of impatience and sheer terror. I struggled with depression and undiagnosed ADD throughout college and so I didn't do as well as I could have, and looking back now I regret so much of those four years. But somehow I made it through, and here I am, standing on the other end, and quite frankly, I'm lost.

I am the proud owner of a BA in English. The first thing everyone asks me when I tell them that is "Are you going to be a teacher?" I have absolutely no desire to teach, and...very few ideas about what else I want to do. I did an internship at a Literary Agency the summer after my sophomore year of college, so maybe I'll try to get a job at some kind of a publishing company but...I really don't know. And I'm running out of time to decide. At the moment I'm working at a bookstore and for the next week or so I'm doing the paper route in my parents' neighborhood. Which I hate. But I need a real job. One that pays enough to pay rent and has medical benefits and oh my god I'm an adult.

I'm not quite over it yet. But there are things I'm looking forward to. My new roommate and I went shopping for all our kitchen and bathroomy stuff the other day and it was really exciting to buy plates and pots and pans and an amazing red microwave and imagine being out on my own. I'll miss the comforts of living with my parents, but there is something exhilarating about finally being on my own and independent.

So this blog is about my journey from terrified launchee into...hopefully some semblance of a well-adjusted, self-sufficient adult. I have high hopes, even if I have no idea where the path I'm on is leading me. It will definitely be a struggle, but what is anything worth if it comes easily? And as it turns out, my mom, dealing with her empty nest, is as a crossroads in her own life. Both of us are stepping out into the unknown and thank god we have each other to hold onto as we go.So I guess this is where we begin.

-Fae