Do you remember when you were in high school and college, doing career counseling, and you had to answer the question, "where do you see yourself in ten to fifteen years?" I doubt that anyone takes those questions completely seriously. We all know that our lives aren't going to turn out looking exactly the way we expect them to. But if you were to tell my college self that six weeks before my 29th birthday my life would look like THIS, I'd probably laugh in your face.
I always thought my life would be unpredictable, but the one thing I expected for certain was that by now I'd find some kind of progress. Maybe I'd be halfway through a career, or getting married, or receiving some kind of award. Certainly not looking at my bank account and thinking that it can't be good that my whole net worth can be counted in the hundreds of dollars. And certainly not six weeks away from celebrating my thirteenth anniversary in the food service industry.
See, I was always what you'd call a "creative" type. An adventurer. I have a degree in film and a passion for travel and writing. I kinda thought that I would find myself in all sorts of unpredictable situations, and that I'd manage to get ahead by capitalizing on my charm and intelligence. A childish notion, but a romantic idea that I wholeheartedly believed in. To understand that kind of logic we have to rewind to my college years.
Scratch, that, let's rewind to childhood first.
Contrary to popular belief, I was never told that I was special. Isn't that what old people accuse my generation of? "Young people these days all think that they're special, that everyone's a winner. They think that they're entitled, it's the ME generation, etc." No, I was never told that I was a unique snowflake, I was never given an award for participation. I was, however, unique. I had a gift for literacy, consuming series of novels as a child far beyond my typical reading level. At ten I was reading Great Expectations while all my friends were marveling over Goosebumps. I excelled in school, scoring in the highest percentile in reading, math, and science. And perhaps because of this my parents never told me I was special. Instead, they told me that I could do anything I set my mind to.
I know my parents believed this, and I think they still do in spite of the evidence. There's an old platitude: "do what you love, and the money will follow," and although I don't know that this advice was ever given to me exactly, several permutations of it were soaked into my brain. My parents told me I could do whatever I set my mind to. My great-grandfather told me to do what made me happy, not what made me money. My high school councilors told me that I was smart enough that I'd be successful at whatever I chose in life. My college professors told me to follow my passions.
And my friends told me to do what I loved, and the money would follow. There it was.
I did what I loved. I earned a degree in film, paying my way through college by way of loans and a part time job working the concession stand at a movie theater. I moved to New York after college, working in a production office and on as many movie shoots as I could, and the money didn't follow me. I moved to Texas and wrote screenplays and television pilots and a novel, and the money didn't follow. I traveled to Europe and Asia and the money didn't follow me there either.
I had a moment of panic this morning when my boss told me that one of the parties I was scheduled for had cancelled. Summer means less business, and less business means less money in my pocket. And since the money in my pocket was already at an all-time low, this sent my head spinning. How would I make it? Would I need a second job? A different job? I had felt this panic before, but it made less sense today than it used to, back when I was a recent college graduate. In my mind, I've moved on, but in life it was business as usual.
I find that I am not myself. I started to google "quarter life crisis," since I was pretty sure that was what I was experiencing. On the upside, I thought, that implies that I'll live to be 120 years old. Small consolation.
This is my story, as I count down my last year in my twenties. One year, one month, and twenty days.
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