Quarterlife Crisis by Alexandra Robbins

Author:Alexandra Robbins [Robbins, Alexandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101215869
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2001-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

Anchors Aweigh

Maura’s description of college as an anchor—and graduation as having that anchor abruptly snatched away—is echoed by many twentysomethings. Leaving college is a little bit like riding a bicycle for the first time—except it’s not just that a trusted adult lets go of the bike at a certain time once the twentysomething has learned how to steady himself while moving forward. It’s more like the bicycle suddenly disappears. Justin, a 24-year-old living in Boston, says that for him, college meant comfort—and when he graduated, the stability and security he had developed in school seemed to drop out from under him. “I was having this postpartum-like depression because my college was my life—all of my friends were from there. I only had a couple of friends from high school and my close friends all moved away, but a lot were in the same position as me. They didn’t know what they were going to do, didn’t want to go to graduate school right away, but were just taking whatever job they could take,” he says. “I always felt like a loser, because I went to a pretty good school and I wasn’t being paid very well at my job, which I took because it was the first one that came along. So I felt really guilty that I wasted my parents’ money on that. I felt out of control, like my life was completely out of my hands and I didn’t know what to do with myself. And even now I still kind of feel that way. I’m trying to get a handle on it, but it’s really hard to separate myself from my college. When I drive by, I think, ‘What I would give for just one more year there.’ I think it would be easier in another city because when I see my school, I want to go back, where it was safe. I felt safe there because I didn’t have to make any life decisions that were going to turn out disastrously.”

To make matters even more complex, on top of all of the other twentysomething anxieties, Justin says he also has to learn how to become comfortable with his sexuality in a world that is much bigger than his school. “I didn’t come out until my senior year of college. I wasn’t into any of the gay associations at school, and it took me a while to be ready to acknowledge it. But in college when people found out, as I got more comfortable and told everyone, I felt very safe. I felt like the campus was open and liberal enough that I wouldn’t get gay-bashed or anything. Granted, not everyone’s open about it, but in general I felt okay,” he says. “It’s harder to deal with in the real world—growing up I didn’t know anyone gay. Going into the new job and not being in that safe environment was a little sketchy. I didn’t know how the real world would react to it, because the microcosm of college is a lot different from the real world.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.