Summary of Me Since College

Boyfriend and me on graduation day

The day I graduated college I wrote the following message in my diary:

"Today I graduated. College. Which means that I am 21 with a summer job, a future job, a boyfriend I am deeply in love with, and friends and family who love and support me. I am equipped with all the materials for the real world. And so for some weird reason, I feel ready. I feel like I don't want another year of college, like I am ready to actually get a job and not be a drain on society. That doesn't mean I'm not nostalgic. I have so many memories here, even moments of perfection.  In these moments: hiking through the Shenandoah valley, watching the stars above Lee Chapel, perching atop the rocks of Woods Creek, and running back campus and to Boxerwood with friends, I found perfection. However, I know the moments will keep coming after college and I am ready."

Me in hospital room about a month later

Now, about 9 months later I can't help laughing at my naïve college self? Ready? Pshhhh. A few weeks later I broke my ankle and lost my summer job. Two surgeries and a plane ride later I learn my future job involved giving 150% of myself for the job when I only felt about 50% whole. Not only was I not able to run or hike, I couldn't even walk for another 3 months! I worked as hard as I could to make up that 100% but it drove me into anxiety and depression, something that I never thought could happen to my happy go-lucky self. After about six months of dreading each day of going to work, I realized, I could leave the job that was causing me to feel this used up and meaningless. This decision was very challenging and I hope to go into it in a future blog post. But for now, you can check out pirgcampusaction.org and Glassdoor for a general sense of what it was like.

Me attempting to fly to my first week
of work while broken

Anyways, at the start of the new year I left PIRG in order to find myself. And with it, I found my family eager to help me. So the family support part of my equation was turning out to be more true than I could ever imagine. I moved in with my parents and worked for my uncle. With him, I spent five hours a day purely entering in some numbers on a screen. It was crazy to me how when I started doing this endless data entry--exactly the thing I thought I hated most--I quickly found myself loving my new job. Now, nothing had changed about my dislike of computers, but the relief from the pressure of PIRG allowed me to get back on my feet. I think I am still recovering from some of the anxiety that grew inside me in the pressures of PIRG, but I am recovering from it each and every day. I am also recovering from my ankle injury and slowly beginning to run. I know my mind and my body will be healthy soon enough.

One of the many wonderful views you get in environmental ed

One of the ways I am healing my body, is by working at a camp. For a minimal stipend and free room and board, I am accomplishing my 12-year old self's' dream: living and working at a camp. As a natural resource education intern, I get to plan curriculums for classes I wish I had gotten to learn in middle and high school and teach them with the nicest colleagues I could imagine. If you are curious about my life as an intern, check out our camp's blog here:

https://holidaylake4h.wordpress.com/

How did I get here? Where am I going next? While I know some basic answers to these questions, only time, and hopefully writing blog posts, will give me a full answer.