That's what the subject line read on an email I received today from the chancellor of my beloved alma mater. "Our commencement exercises earlier this month marked the ceremonial end of a year filled with outstanding accomplishments by UCLA’s students, faculty and staff" Good lord. What day is it? It's already past graduation weekend for the quarter-system students? Brace yourselves, summer is coming.
And while the idea of the summer season has not made any difference for me since I spend every season in the office on a chair behind a couple of computer screens nowadays, I know what it will entail: tourists swarming the streets, summer interns filling the empty desks around me, Facebook posts about people's study abroad adventures or 3 week vacations they've been saving up for, and the fact that I'll be dripping in sweat whenever I enter a room that is slightly warmer than the one I was in before.
But this year, the coming of summer marks a certain milestone people don't usually give a second or third or seventh thought about. You see, this being 2012, I have now been out of college for as long as I was in it. And I think that's what drew me to actually open this canned email tonight that I would normally have automatically sent to the trash. It's now been officially 4 years since I had any real commitment to Westwood (though I did take summer classes that year so technically…), and so naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is "what the hell have I been doing this whole time?"
I feel like I ask myself that a lot. But be honest, you've probably asked yourself that multiple times these past few years too. And I feel that this lingering bout of self-reflection is exacerbated by the fact that today marks another milestone for me. You see, this this the 366th day I've spent here living in New York (not 365, thanks to Leap Year), and needless to say, life is very very different from where I was a year ago.
I mean, plenty has stayed the same, if anything. I'm still living on my friend's couch, I'm still wearing the same basketball shorts at home, and I'm still drinking out of the same blue plastic cup I bought at Rite Aid the night I moved here. But yes, I do have to say that this grand east coast experiment has yielded mostly favorable results.
And I say mostly because I do still question some of my motivations for coming here in the first place. Career, new experiences, new people, and the fact that it is New Fucking York were what drove me here in the first place. But what worries me the most about being here is that the wonders of the internet and the omnipresence of the socially media active can't replace the familiarity and belonging you get with an immediate circle of people to rely on (being in a different time zone from everyone has its difficulties as well). While I wouldn't say that any relationships I have with anyone are strained at all, the feeling of missing out on experiences that bring you closer with those you love can be difficult. Anyone who's graduated and moved away from the locale of their college can attest to that. Anyone on active duty can too. My brother can vouch for it after moving to China 4 years ago, and missing out on our family growing up and growing old.
Dwelling on that too much is not healthy for anyone who's 2,924 miles away from home (ironically making me the one who lives closest to my parents out of my siblings, with my brother living in China and my sister residing in Spain for the summer).
And the best way to remedy that is to carve out the best experiences you can out of where you are and to expand the circle of people in your life that you love. Yeah, yeah, I know:
Which I have done, and I still do. And I can say that thanks to quite magical things such as meetup.com, I've met hundreds of different personalities here. Every other person I meet here in New York is not actually from New York. And though everyone has their own unique reason for being here in the first place, one of them most common stories I've run into is "I needed a change of scenery, and I just packed up and moved here." And they move here, with no idea where they're going to sleep their first night, no idea how they're gonna make money, no idea if they'll be able to afford to eat in the next week. They take their jobs at Foot Locker, at Starbucks, at Trader Joe's, and that's all they need to be content here, just because it's New Fucking York. And they enjoy every moment here because in a matter of weeks they could end up back where they started, whether it be St. Louis, Minnesota, or one time I heard, "back to old country." That kind of ambition takes cajones (or in the case of women, well, still cajones). And knowing that I'm nearly on the same level as these newly well-endowed travelers from afar is enough to keep me motivated.
"New life goal: Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction."
-ES