OyChicago blog

Sometimes I say "I just graduated" or "I recently started working," and now that it's a little over a year later, "just" and "recently" gotta go, and frankly it kind of sucks.

Now I know that transitioning from the greatest four years of your life to the probably not-so-great beginning working years of your life was NO EASY FEAT. And I put that in caps because I think sometimes people underestimate the drastic lifestyle overhaul. The wounds of a recent graduate are raw, but now ours are just scars. As we get older and fully immerse ourselves in the working world, college gets further and further away. Like anything in the past, the small details become increasingly difficult to remember and we are no longer the new meat in the office, but just an average employee where there’s little distinction if we’ve been out of college for two years or for 10.

I've survived the first year, but what next? The answer is both simple and difficult. We know, we knowww that we're working for the rest of our God-given days (until we retire or abscond with a billionaire), but what's next has to be more than that. After freshman year comes sophomore year and after junior year comes senior year, but what's after year one in the real world? Are years two and three repeats of year one? I cannot tell you how much I despise change; it was even stressful when my room was painted a new color. I know—like c'mon Gabi.

The irony of it is that after year one, I am welcoming change with open arms. Sometimes I think I get so focused in a routine that I am missing out on life! Okay, that's dramatic but in a weird, toned-down kind of way it's partially true. As I ride the train to work everyday I see the same people, sitting in the same seats, reading the same papers. Usually I think these people are my heroes because I just don't know how they do it year in and year out, but sometimes there's this little part of me that worries that life actually might pass me by while I'm sitting in the same seat reading the same paper.

I am seriously cheesing out right but get over it, cheese is delicious.

Sometimes it's good to take mom's tacky, clichéd advice and dive head first into something new and unexpected. Deep breath—I’m moving to a new city where I know no one, to start a new school I know nothing about. If I learned anything from my first year out of college besides how to fix the copy machine and mail an overweight package, it's that change doesn't have to be the awful new room color I thought it was.