Plunge

When you get to be a certain age that some would describe as old-ish, there are certain privileges that come along with it. At some point, you kinda realize that you can serve as a sage voice of wisdom (or something). I have no idea where this role comes along... the older I've gotten, the more familiar I've become with the creeping suspicion that, no matter how many years pass by, nobody really has a clue what they're talking about. To a certain extent, we're all just kinda gropin' in the dark. And, I think that's okay, provided you come to terms with this "life is for learning" principle, and actually kinda embrace it. 

So, I have this friend. None of you know her, and at the end of the day, I suppose she's more of a casual acquaintance. Anyway, hers is not a terribly unfamiliar story, especially in an age where we're in high school one day, asking for hall passes and dealing with curfews, and then, after a summer, are thrust into a system where we're expected to know what we want to do when we grow up. 

If I had it to do all over again, I never would have gone to college, to be perfectly honest. I didn't really learn anything that I couldn't have picked up from a few books that I could'a just gotten at Barnes and Noble (back when we had those). I was always a good-ish writer; college didn't teach me much new in that regard. And by the time I submitted the resume that would result in my second real big-girl job, I discovered that nobody really gave a damn where I went to college, or in fact, if I had. I suppose it's one of those "to get credit, you need to have credit" paradoxes. Did you GET a degree? Fine, the rest of your stuff checks out, you're not a serial killer, and you have a few clips that got published. Welcome aboard, there's your cubicle. (It's the system. Just seems like I spent a lot of time and money that I didn't have to when, it turns out in hindsight, I could have just Jeff Winger'd it and lied to begin with. 

Did I ever mention this before? I was a political science major for the first three years of college. I hated it. I think a lot of poli-sci people will tell you that — they go into it because they're interested in politics. They learn a little about it, discover that everyone is just running around like headless chickens, and grow to despise it. And besides, what the hell was I gonna do with that degree? I didn't wanna go to law school, that would have just killed my soul. So... open a political science store? Murp. 

I remember the day it hit me. The semester was about 3/4 of the way over, and I had been to my one 8 a.m. class... twice? I was gonna be lucky to pull out a C- in that class, and that was stressing me out. Before I got out of bed, I was like, "Fuck it. I know I should probably just get the degree, but in this? No thanks." 

I didn't know what I wanted to do. So... I decided to take the semester off. My family was NOT thrilled. They didn't cut me off, per se, but if I wasn't gonna go to school, I was damn-well gonna support myself until I went back. 

Best half-year of my life. I was the cute, moody girl at the trendy hipster coffee shop making dirt cash. But free lunches, it was walking distance from my tiiiiny apartment. I went out and drank cheap hooch every night, wrote a lot, found myself making out with a LOT of people, and... figuring out what was next. My gut said English major, but (no offense to those of you who went the B.A. route there), there's not much of a market. How can a gal make money with a degree that involves writing?

A-ha! JOURNALISM! A noble pursuit, if there ever was one! Despite everyone's convictions, I DID go back to school. I had to bust my ass to finish with the extra credits I needed. But for the first time in my whole college life, I loved what I was doing, and was surrounded by a bunch of like-minded scoundrels. My first class DID include a professor reminding us that none of us was going to get rich off this stuff, but it wasn't about money for us. It was about the honor. We were all a bunch of Hunter S. Thompson junkies, and one of his quotes summed it up for us: 

“I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.”

Right? Who needs money? Not when you get your degree, get a job at the paper, working the copy desk. Late hours and thankless work? Who cares! You earn your stripes. You bust your way up to a beat you hate, get a few bylines, and one day? Maybe you get a scoop that gets you a column! Who cares — you get to write for a living!

I got my degree in 2007, juuuuust before the Great Recession kicked in... The paper started to fold... all of them did... Ah, well. Still managed to get a paycheck one way or the other. And what's more, I did it with a degree that I didn't have to look at, and figure out... why?

That was about 15 years ago. I've learned a lot since then, but that was a big lesson. I took a plunge. My family and friends were some mix of disappointed, mad, or incredulous about whether I would be just another dropout (not that there's anything wrong with that — refer to previous 'overall, kinda wish I hadn't' comment). But I pulled it through. See?! I told you I'd do it!

In hindsight, it was a bold move for me. Annnnd, it was the first time in my life that I had ever made a big decision, for myself, that nobody else wanted me to make. Isn't that liberating? Taking the reigns in your own hands and making up your own mind, for yourself? Best feeling in the world. It seems small, but it's something I'm terribly proud of. 

My friend. She's 21. Same boat as I'm in. And yeah, it made me feel a little old when I was giving her the "when I was your age" conversation. But, it was a good talk. I think I gave the advice well, didn't pressure or prescribe, and for what it was worth, I think I was the first person who found her in this difficult time in her life and said, "You know what? You're making the right move. Good on you, chica." 

That felt pretty good.