I think we’ve heard this story before. “I graduated and then it was like… now what?” *Flips hand.* The listless youngster full of ambition and wanderlust. What does she do next? She tries every man, job, and ice cream flavor and cries every night and develops both healthy and unhealthy habits in a desperate attempt to soothe her disquieted soul.
She’s death-scrolling on Instagram; past happy newly-weds, dog-moms, and job promotion announcements wondering why she even went to college. Why did she work so hard? No one really cares about her A’s or that one B- she got sophomore year that wrecked her near-perfect GPA. No one cares that she was President, Vice-President, Co-chair, corporate credit-card holder, student favorite, tutor, contract signee, and star performer. No one cares, not even her.
She wonders if she made a mistake, if she was a mistake. She wonders if there is even a place for her, when she doesn’t fit in any of the molds or cutouts or templates or frames, or whatever you want to call it. Even if she did, there isn’t really room for her on the page.
In fact, she would realize that she didn’t fit in any book, magazine, or spread where she expected to find herself. She would fumble through the pages, thinking, “maybe this is it,” but it never was. She would walk the streets at night, slightly out of her right mind. She would dance in the mirror and cry through the lyrics of her favorite albums until she couldn’t stand the very words and melodies that gave her solace.
She'd escape into the night time, stuck in a trance of “what ifs” and “one days.” She would spoon through vegan vanillas in search of cool reprieve but they never quite did the job. She was sadder alone and happier with company. Happier alone and sadder with company. It was never very predictable, yet also unsurprising.
However.
However.
There would come a time when all of her "no"s and all of their "no"s would become a maybe. It's been years since the first Sadness. She's new, now. She's shed some things, and gained some things. She's read some things, and said some things. She's learned. No longer the novice, she has come to a different kind of "what if." The kind that leads to the same questions she asked herself years ago, but with intention, with hope, and even with fervor.
I'd like to let you know that the stories I tell will be different now. I promise myself not to wallow, not to sulk. Not to dwindle, dawdle, or disintegrate. I promised myself I'd be more compassionate. Be patient. Be kind. Be ruthless. Be vulnerable. Be strong. Be a force to be reckoned with, regardless of the answers I may or may not have because, now, I am not concerned at all with "fitting" anywhere.
