Falling Back to Earth

The wonderful high of landing a full-time, salaried job one month out of college has now ended and I'm back to being an over-imaginative, highly anxious twenty-something who remembers that she has no idea how to take care of herself by herself.

Now that I have that whole job thing taken care of, I'm moving onto the other, equally important factors in the Next Step equation: finding temporary housing and transportation until my parents arrive in New Jersey four weeks after I do; determining how much money I'm actually going to make versus the salary and making a budget; finding an apartment (that I can afford!); buying a car; figuring out car insurance and health insurance (I have health insurance, but now I need to know what to do with it); finding a primary care doctor, endocrinologist, opthamologist and dentist (thank God I've got the CDE figured out already and that I'm not sexually active, thus in no need of gynocologist at the moment); buying furniture; and shipping all my clothes, books, pictures, knick-knacks and 50-odd shotglasses to my TBD apartment.

I have spent hours scouring Craigslist, Rent.com, apartment websites, hotel websites, rental car websites, cross-checking prices and locations. I practically have the entire map of Northern New Jersey memorized at this point.

I'm glad I decided to skip commencement. Part of me is a little disappointed that's how it worked out because I wanted to go. But adding another $300 plane ticket into the mix is looking more and more like a terrible idea.

Besides, the ceremony is at 9 in the morning. Who wants to spend seven hours to fly across for two days to attend a long-ass boring ceremony with complete strangers? I already have my diploma. I'm good to go.

In lieu of commencement, I'm having a graduation/going-away party on May 19 with my friends from high school and college. I'm excited about that, but I'm also sad because that's the last time I will see most of these people for a very long time.

Hopefully my proximity to NYC will be an incentive to have visitors.

One whole month until I'm there. And I can't even really do anything on my list until I get to New Jersey, which is really driving me nuts at this point. I hate waiting. I'm not a patient person.

I'm tired of these empty spaces, these answerless questions.

I know everything will work out.

I just wish I believed it too.