A year ago, I was a month into my final semester of college, excited about the possibilities that finally graduating would bring. Actually more nervous than excited, but I had months before the semester would end and I was working a semi-steady job at a historical reenactment site, not as an actor but the friendly face of the Visitor Center. I wasn’t always friendly to all of my co-workers. I feel comfortable thinking that they liked having me around, at the very least for the entertainment of my awkward and usually uncomfortable outbursts. I had just started dating my first love, for the second time and I was quite happy with where life was going. I mean there were ups and downs and moments of complete and utter doubt, but that is and was my life in general. Which is probably more or less true of everyone.
Anyway, I made it through the semester, I successfully graduated, Cum Laude might I add. I’m proud of that, sure it’s not summa or even magna but it’s more than a lot of people can say. Graduating came with a lot of questions, as I’m sure it does and did for everyone, particularly “so what’s next?”
What was next? I had no idea my relationship was moderately copasetic, although the underlying problems of why we didn’t work out the first time were starting to surface again, but I was confident in spending my life with him. Oh, the naivety of youth and young love. So, I was sure that I would move closer to him after my lease was up in July, and I’d find a job in my hometown doing non-profit work. Which was my certain career path, at the time. Of course that wasn’t good enough for people so I usually said that I’d work at the Mission until my lease was up and then I’d get a job until I could get into Graduate school. I needed a break from college. People could understand that after seventeen and a half years of schooling without more than a summer vacation, I could use the welcome break.
Life went mostly as I had planned, except I left my job at the Mission to work at a camp in Central Florida for the summer. I figured what the heck, after camp I’d move in with my mom we’d live in disharmony until after I got a job and my own place to live but it wouldn’t be long. Although, my first love and I were in extremely rocky pastures and I had already decided it was over before I moved back home, but I was sure we would still be friends so it wouldn’t be bad being close to him, and I wasn’t too far from Orlando where many of my friends from high school still reside. Camp was great, as always I love working with kids and if I could spend my summers at camp, I certainly would.
Unfortunately, life threw me a curve ball and my newly diagnosed, cancer-ridden grandmother took up residence in my room. Two weeks before camp ended I was desperately searching for an alternative living situation. I mentioned to my dad my situation and he invited me to come stay with him. I accepted hoping, that by the time my already planned two-week long road trip was over, my grandmother would have bit the dust and I wouldn’t need to take him up on his offer. It’s harsh I won’t deny it, but please understand that I have more in common with my dad then I do than with the woman who disowned both me and my brother before we left the womb.
After camp let out she had finished her first round of chemo and she seemed to have handled it well. I was somewhat crushed but decided that maybe life wouldn’t be horrible after all. My plans for after camp had barely changed, I was intending to move in with a parent in a city at least 30 minutes away from people I know, and I had no job opportunities. I knew that I hadn’t lived with my dad since the end of seventh grade, but he was my dad and I’m sure it would be better than living with my mom. I was also working under false pretenses.
Shortly after I moved in with my dad, my grandmother died, and I was stuck. Here I am at a new beginning, waiting impatiently for life to take off. Hoping to jump-start it if necessary.
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