I do this thing where I romanticize my future life, only to arrive at that future and be met with overwhelming mediocrity. For example, I've had this idealistic last-summer-before-the-real-world playing out in my head over the past couple months…there's a girl and sunsets and late-night shenanigans — a dream of a summer. Yet, here I am, one month in, and it's been nothing but sweaty, lonely, and boring. The closest thing I can compare it to is jail. It's like I'm on death row watching my friends get summoned off one-by-one to corporate America (where souls go to die) as I scratch in a tick mark on my cell wall, counting down the days til it's my turn. And though I was warned about feeling the post-grad blues, I never thought I'd be one to succumb to them, but I did and it sucks and now I'm grieving the life I've lived and the lives I'll never get to.
The last picture I took before leaving college
Post-grad Grief Stage #1: Denial
Although I did, in fact, sign a legally-binding contract with an employer, not a single thought has been given to the idea of becoming a working man and full-fledged adult. I start in a month and I don't know how I'm getting there, I don't know where I'm living, I have no idea what I'll be doing, and I'm perfectly okay with it. I've diligently replaced the idea of cubicles and suits and zoom meetings with the perfect summer, one of lake days and beer and tan lines. I thought if I didn't think about it, it wouldn't happen, that maybe this perfect summer I envisioned in my head would happen instead. I know now, that's not the case.
Post-grad Grief Stage #2: Anger
Once I stopped avoiding the fact that I was actually becoming an adult, I got mad at myself. How did I let my years of freedom pass me by? Why have I blindly chosen the societally-agreed-upon next step every step of the way so far? Is this it? Is this everything? I was angry I never made time to know myself and my passions, because now my time is theirs. Maybe in another life, at this point, I'd be moving to France to become a painter, or to Nashville to become a songwriter, or be shacking up in hostels all over the world, gathering inspiration for the book I dreamed would top the NYT bestsellers list. Instead, I've settled for the good and stable thing and I hate that. And I hate the way time feels like it's slipping between my fingertips as I try to hold on to it.
Post-grad Grief Stages #3 & #4: Bargaining & Depression
When my anger subsided, nostalgia and sadness took its place. I reminisced on the summer my friends and I practically lived in the woods. We built forts and balanced on logs to cross creeks and mapped out the forest to keep track of our new discoveries. I thought about the time we nearly got caught dumpster diving at Krispy Kreme and how we threw the salvaged donuts at this guy's car after he chucked his coffee at us. I remember the night I snuck onto the golf course with a girl and we watched the fireflies together. Somehow, at 23, I feel too old to have another summer as adventurous as the ones that came before. All of the sudden, society is telling me to go make money and pay taxes and get my shit together when mentally I'm still in the woods or at Krispy Kreme or on the golf course. I should've lived more, lived bigger, lived louder when I could've.
Post-grad Grief Stage #5: Acceptance
So, this is it. This is my summer before the real world. I'm sad. I graduated. I'm doing the whole corporate america thing. I'm an adult now. And maybe part of growing up is accepting that life isn't always the perfect summer. But what I've realized is I don't have to stop romanticizing it. I don't have to accept the arbitrary expiration date society has placed on my youth. And I don't have to let the post-grad blues hijack my perspective of the future. I can choose to find the extraordinary in the overwhelming mediocrity of life, live it on my terms, and pay taxes all at the same time.
This life is what you make it,
The Monochrome Man