The post-graduate graduate life has been hilariously fun.
I’m not really sure how to describe what life is like in a way that would be
broadly relatable, but I guess hilariously fun will have to do. Since
graduation, I found myself road tripping for weeks at a time, landing an
unexpected and unwanted job, and living in the mountains. I’m broke, but my
life is currently what most work their entire lives to find and I found it in
the dawn of my 30’s.
Graduating from graduate school was painful. It was the most
fulfilling intellectual experience of my life. I made great friends, found
incredible mentors, and experienced a radically dizzying 540 degree twist on
how I view the world, life, and how I want to live. I found new interests,
lost old ones, and found exactly what I was looking for. Living under the
poverty line in grad school on a rare but limited stipend, the launch into the
real world wasn’t financially friendly. I knew it wouldn’t be, but I think I made the best of it.
Instead of worrying, I am living on the small amount of
savings I had, and resting on the laurels of a seed I planted over two years ago
before approaching grad school. I don’t know what was going through my head
over two years ago when I decided to go to grad school in an RV, but I wish I
could thank my old self. The ability to float and not worry about steep rents
or leases has been a godsend and has allowed me to survive the launch into the
vicious exo-school world without a guaranteed paycheck.
It’s strange to look back on what led me to this plan over
two years ago then consider how much has changed in my head over the last two
years. The me that entered grad school wouldn’t recognize the me of today.
Vulnerability safely hidden behind iron-clad walls, science my only way of thinking,
and a damaging belief in a rigid world; the pre-grad school me would have found
my current post-graduate-self unfathomable. I don’t know how to describe it,
but I thank the old me for being so rigid and fearful of the world.
In the same breath, I finally don’t fear the world. I now
know that I will fail and I am not afraid of it. Failure is inevitable and it
is one of the only pure universal truths. On my path to failure, I will do
everything in my power to not, but when I do, I will fall more gracefully than
I was capable of before. I will no longer approach failure as something to be
avoided because the imagined consequences are too painful to endure. Instead, I
now approach failure as a fork in the road that will allow for new journeys and
experiences.
In one of the scariest moments of my life, jobless and with
no apparent hope of finding work, I stumbled upon work that took me to live in
the mountains for most of the summer. Failure happened – joblessness happened –
and the world didn’t end. Through seeds planted years prior, I floated myself,
landed softly, slid through a potentially bad situation with grace. I let luck
take me where it would. Sure, I’m not working in a glamorous job, living in a
glamorous house, or driving a glamorous car, but what I am doing fits me and
works well for now. I have security that so few do; I own the roof over my head
outright and can drive my house to the next place that I find work after this
job is done.
Most importantly, I’m happier than I may have ever been
because I finally found the tools to be happy and to live in a way that works
for me. This little multi-year road trip isn’t over yet, but it isn’t permanent
either. I will feel the chains of domestication once again someday, but instead
of an imaginary obligation to do so, I will now only fall to the clutches of a
conventional daily grind by choice and through life events that pull me there.
And if that day never comes, then it doesn’t and I will be happy either way.
Graduate school was one of the most important events of my life so far. I don’t
know what drove me there, I certainly didn’t know what it was I was looking
for, but I am pretty sure I found it.
