Can you get to a future if the past is present? ~Carrie
First, let's have a moment of silence for the amazing feat that was just accomplished by yours truly. TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY! Hooray! I must say that I am fairly proud of myself. Since I'm no longer taking classes, I've realized that I've started to create smaller senses of victory in my life. I've realized that there really isn't a comparable feeling to finishing a paper and hitting "print" in the professional world. Sure, you can finish a project or create a new proposal, but I really haven't had the same sense of accomplishment so I'm finding it through my blog. With that in mind, I popped in my "Paper Writing Mix: 2006-2007" with the intent of finishing this post today. In case you are wondering, it's a mixture of Billy Joel, Journey, and vintage Kelly Clarkson. Don't judge. It's what got me through grad school so it must have been doing something right!
Second, I started off writing my last post about the issue that I am going to address, but it somehow spiraled into an advice session for job candidates. Isn't it weird where your writing can take you sometimes? Anyway, I decided that I still needed to process some of my issues and what better way than through a global stage that literally dozens of people read on a semi-monthly basis?! Am I selling myself short? Perhaps...
Okay, let's get down to business, shall we? Like the quote from Sex and the City states can we ever get to our future if our past is present? (PS Countdown to the SATC movie: 84 days!) I could think of no better quote than this to describe the last week of my life. Let me set it up for you. I have a friend from grad school, let's call him "Sam" who I have become increasingly close with after graduation. Although he is still back home, we talk at minimum once a week for at least an hour per session. Clearly, we're close. Therefore, it seemed only natural to invite him to see my new fabulous (res) life over his spring break. I set up a ton of activities, lined up times for my new friends to meet and fall in love with him and actually took a week off of work to show him around my new life. While I know that I have a somewhat romanticized view of the world (I'm working on it), I really had high hopes for the visit. I thought that we would fall back into the same witty, back-and-forth banter that had been happening over the phone for the past 10 months, but it would be in person. What could be better, right?
Wrong. I...was...so...wrong! He arrived and it was like it was a different person in front of me. Everything that I found enjoyable about him over the phone and from grad school now became incredibly annoying and grating to my nerves. I kept looking at him and thinking to myself "This is not the person that I remember." The basis of all of our conversations was simply a re-telling of things that happened in our past and he didn't seem too excited about my new life or job or friends. Granted, he did make an effort to get to know my new friends, who also happen to be my collegues since I haven't gotten around to the whole "making friends off-campus" thing, but it was a stretch to make conversation. My friends could tell that I was really getting annoyed with him as the trip went on and (God bless them!) continued to offer to tag along to activities and attractions to be a buffer between the two of us.
By the end of the trip, I was really ready for him to leave which actually came as a surprise, even to me. I am a somewhat, okay who am I kidding, really emotional person and don't deal with goodbyes in the most mature fashion (ie I bawl my eyes out), but when we said goodbye at the airport, it was like I was shipping off an acquaintance that I barely knew instead of someone that I had grown close to and had known for a year and a half. There was little to no emotional attachment anymore and at the time, I didn't really understand why.
However, since my grad school professors drilled the importance of reflection in my brain, I took some time to process with my friends and finally came to a conclusion. I didn't enjoy my time with Sam because he represented my past and I am fulling living my present and future. I wasn't really interested in rehashing old stories or memories from grad school when I could be making new memories now. I can honestly say that I have changed and grown a lot just in the few months that I have been away from home and I don't want to go back to many of the habits and quirks that dogged me in grad school. I think I have become much more self-sufficient and confident in my abilities in both a personal and professional capacity. I think I am more self-centered and I find myself looking from within for validation before looking to others and I honestly don't want to go back to the old me.
In conclusion, I am glad that Sam visited if for no other reason than it made me appreciate my new life, job, and friends even more than I already did. It was so nice to have friends that I could turn to for emotional support instead of always having others turn to me. I realized that I am so much happier in my new job than I was with my job in grad school and also that my old institution pales in comparison to my new one. Basically, Sam's annoying, cloying, and overbearingly awful visit helped me really be thankful for my new life, so thanks Sam!
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