confessions of a (somewhat) young professional
With the day of commencement fast approaching, I started a habit of going on LinkedIn every other day, saving and applying for jobs/internships, manically writing cover letters. While I felt productive (and a bit self-righteous) at first, this activity has become draining. Yet I persist, because I have to.
In the beginning, I was naive and thought, let me be organized and make a list of all the places I’ve applied to. But all that went to shit after the first week. There’s no use in keeping track. It more or less carries a similar arrogance to using Tinder, and recalling the number of people you’ve matched with. Like modern dating, the ratio of jobs you apply to versus the amount of employers who respond is pretty slim. But there’s so much more at stake here (what’s better than sex? a livable salary), and for my generation, there are more losses when it comes to job-searching. We turn to astrology and tarot for silver linings, glimpses of hope. I’ve already received not one but two rejection letters from one of the Big Five (publishing houses)—which I expected, but still stung nonetheless.
At least since I’ve been in school, I’ve thought of time, or a year to be more specific, in blocks. Spring semester is the first block of the year, summer is the second, and then fall semester, then winter break. Since I’m graduating in December, towards the end of the calendar year, I have to reconstruct the way I think of time in a way that isn’t so disorienting to my psyche. You’re looked down upon if you don’t have routine or structure, especially with a newly obtained Bachelor’s Degree. When I think of 2020, I don’t see any blocks. In fact, I don’t see anything. I’m reaching into the empty for something that doesn’t exist yet—a returned email, or the life of a nine-to-five.
“You picked a really fun time to date me,” I said to my boyfriend one day. We meet up during his lunch break a couple of times a week, depending on the rigor of my schoolwork. One day, I’ll be talking excitedly about my future, and the next I’ll be crying about not getting hired anywhere, thinking that my resume doesn’t have enough to prove my competence. It’s easy to dream big, and at times easier to shrink myself to the size of a grain of sand. “You’ll be fine, you’ll be okay,” everyone reassures me. And I want to believe them, especially when I think of rent and that gorgeous jacket from Madewell and the reiteration of “Hi, how are you?/Have a good night!” weekend after weekend in the same spot. I really do.
The second Cleveland Drafts festival was two weekends ago, and this year it was held on the East Side of Cleveland, on Larchmere Boulevard. A lot of planning went into this, and while the structure was similar (a panel, followed by a series of readings along the block and an after party) to last year’s festivities in Tremont I had different feelings going in this year. I requested off months ago, and was actually volunteering (selling raffle tickets, rather unsuccessfully I might add) this year. I wasn’t on the outside looking in. The literary journal that I now work for (mostly remotely) did a reading at an auto-body shop. Towards the end of my internship at Cleveland Magazine, I was searching for just that—that feeling of community. After my internship with the nonprofit Literary Cleveland, things started to come together. The greeting or nod of recognition at open mics, local readings, the slew of familiar faces—other writers, past and present professors, former classmates, people from the Literary Cleveland and Brews and Prose and Cleveland Drafts committees. I don’t have to think about being a student, or what I do to pay my bills. I can just be who I am with or without pretentiousness—a writer or literary type. And the fact that I’ve found that in my city is so rewarding to me. There are so many of us here, from different backgrounds, who come together for one thing—a love of words and the power and passion that comes with it.
And yet. Maybe it’s pent-up angst, or boredom, or both. I have an itch to leave. Last Sunday over blackberry pancakes with my boyfriend, my phone vibrated. It was an email from a company that I applied to in New York, inviting me for an in-person interview at their Midtown location. I practically shrieked. Then I started crying. If I were to move out of Cleveland, I would be giving up so much—a spacious apartment with affordable rent, my therapists, my family, my relationship, even. Although the job interview didn’t pan out, the prospect of my leaving became more real, and less of a post-grad pipe dream. Last week, I burned through Sweetbitter again cover to cover out of solace.
Considering it took me a month to pick out a new backpack for school, I can’t just pack up and go, or be close-minded about the career I may or may not end up with. I have a lease. I have a mountain of debt that has to start shrinking next June. But that doesn’t mean I can’t want things, even if they are much bigger than me, or Cleveland for that matter.
Here’s to dreaming and failing, and dreaming again. What are the things you’re scared of wanting?
All the best,
Grace