23 Broke As Hell and Lost As F*ck
7:26 PMWelcome. If you are reading this, then lucky you. I am an interesting individual and you clearly have good taste.
Well currently, I'm writing my first blog post from my room at my grandmother's house. Like most millennials that I know of, I have come back post grad (minus the "grad" part), but post college, and am struggling to find work.
The story leading up to how I got to this point is rather long, but here it is in a nutshell:
Going on five years ago today, I decided to go to college for business, because I thought it would be practical. I had some incredible experiences, some shitty experiences, and some incredibly shitty experiences including: Being flown out to Cali and New York, all expenses paid, being threatened by my next door neighbors, discovering the healing powers of marijuana, and almost being jumped by my roommate.
Eventful, no?
I enjoyed my independence and financial freedom, however, I became severely depressed during my sophomore year because I felt as if I wasn't gaining anything from my time in college.
Freshman year I entered on rising scholar status as I didn't have the best GPA in high school, in fact, 1.8 GPA. This was not because I was stupid, this was because I hated school, and didn't apply myself. All of my teachers said the same thing: Shannon is very sweet, well behaved, and extremely intelligent, she just does not do the work. Which was all true. When I first arrived at college I hit the groun running, and my GPA jumped to a 2.7. Had I stayed the course I would have easily passed 3.0 status.
After my freshman year, I decided to transfer to a less embarrassing school with a much better business program (the best in the south east.) When I got my new schedule which read something like this: art appreciation, geometry, Literature, Japanese, college algebra, all I could think was: what the fuck am I doing this shit for?
This isn't college level work. This is my ninth grade class schedule. Where were the business courses? When was I going to learn marketing? Do I even want to do business?
I realized then that my soul had slowly been leaking out of me. Everything I had been doing, while useful in other aspects of my life, was not what I wanted to be doing. I hadn't written anything out of pure enjoyment for over a year. I hadn't even read a damn book that wasn't assigned reading in over a year. My once colorful, flamboyant hair and wardrobe was gone. Now I wore the same drab colors and clothes as everyone else without even realizing it.
It was as if college and work had become my entire life. Like those two things alone had begun to define me. The Shannon that I had began to cultivate in middle and high school, that I had struggled so hard to learn to love and appreciate, was buried beneath leasing paper work and micro-economics homework. I hated it. I had no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it, I was simply going through the motions.
Then, one marijuana fueled night, my best friend/roommate (not the one that tried to jump me) said: "Let's write a book about being sugar babies."
So I picked up my laptop, and that moment felt something like this
When my friend finished reading the first three chapters he asked me: "Shannon why aren't you in school for this? This is what you should be doing for a living."
To do this day he is the ONLY person to ever say that to me and I love him even more for it.
So I quit school, and eventually, decided to move back home to save up some money.
So, here we are now. Back to where it all began. Sitting on my laptop at my grandmother's house expressing myself through my words. It's crazy how things come full circle like that, but in my struggle to find myself, lose myself, and find myself again, I can say without a doubt that I have much more clarity of thought now than I did five years ago when I left for college. I know what I don't want to do (teach business), what I can do (even planning/leasing), and what I want to do (write!)
This is not a piece to discourage kids from going to college, but rather to reach out to other lost and broke millennials. You're not alone. You are not a failure. You are young.You are learning. You are growing. This is life.
Sometimes backwards to move forward.
-Luke Cage
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