Reality Bites

There's a scene in the movie, Reality Bites (awesome '90s movie about post-college life), where Winona Ryder's character, after having been fired from her first job, cries to her roommate (played by Ethan Hawke), "I was really going to be somebody by the time I was 23." Ethan Hawke's character replies, "Honey, all you have to be by the time you are 23 is yourself." Winona Ryder then responds in the most defeated manner, "I don't know who that is anymore." And....SCENE. Now, queue me, the viewer. In my pajamas on a late Friday evening, after the most challenging workweek of my life, watching Winona Ryder's character express her existential angst about her post-college life, her disappointments, her confusion, and relating so much to her...that, I too, had to shed a small, defeated tear.

It's been exactly a year since I've graduated from college and if there is anything I have learned about myself since then it is that I know less about myself than I did in college. I'm nostalgic for my college life for many reasons. Friends, my apartment, the sense of independence, academic stimulation, Berkeley, walking...mainly though, I'm nostalgic for the person I was back then. I definitely had my insecurities in college, but never was I insecure about my life plans. I had my dreams, dreams that I thought I would never compromise. I had a vision of the life I wanted for myself, a life where I would never 'settle' or lose sight of my goals. I had direction.

And now, a year later? After months of disappointment, the reality of what it means to have my dreams and actualizing them have set in. I learned that in this economy, dreams take a backseat because really, we can dream all we want but dreams aren't going to fill your stomach or put a roof over our heads. So, my declaration to never move back home after college went by the wayside, and my intention of finding a political job died along with it. Sure, I had those small glimpses of hope, going to interviews here and there, but without strong connections in the field or money to finance a few months in another city to job hunt, I had to give in and accept that at least for the time being, this is my life.

And my life right now is not bad, at all. It is exactly where I need to be, to learn and gain the experience I need for my future career. I am grateful for this experience, but I am not going to lie that there is not a part of me that is a bit sad knowing I am nowhere close to my original plans. But the real clincher is that I don't even know if those plans are right for me anymore. I don't know what I want and because my sense of myself has for so long been enmeshed with my goals, I don't know who this person is anymore.

I know life is about growth. Plans change and you have to tough it out and re-plan, and re-plan, and re-plan. I know that. But, what if you really don't know what you want for yourself. You're aimless. For a person that has led a rather structured life, filled with planned goals and time measures on when they had to be achieved, this is all new territory for me. People keep telling me, "This is just a stepping stone," but what if you no longer know which stone to step to next?