the point of everything: a hypothetical commencement speech for the class of 2014

To my friends at the beginning of their new journeys,

I come here with a heart full of eager anticipation for all of you.

We were freshmen together, but I graduated early with strangers. Now a year later, I wish I could say that I am here talking to you because I have exciting and inspiring tales from the other side of college: success stories of a job, world travel, or even an unpaid internship. Stories that make you confident, make you feel better. That is not why I am here. What I can tell you from the other side is that the easy part of your life ends today, your real work has now begun, and even your great college education can’t have adequately prepared you for the remainder of your existence.

Several of you will begin to study to be pastors and counselors as you privately cope with an addiction. One or two of you will begin, for the first time in your life, to honestly question your sexual orientation and the implications that that will have on your adult life. Some of you will move to Washington to attempt to balance Christian ethics with the tangle of political ambition. And some of you, like me, will wrestle through months of discouraging unemployment while searching for work, bewildered by your failure.

Your character cannot be attributed to the nurturing of this school. It was, and always will be, a matter between you and God and the challenges that are coming your way. This season will be weighty, and how you approach it matters very much. Are you ready?

///

I am going to tell you a story you’ve heard before, because you helped to invent it. Once upon a time, some friends of mine got married after graduation in 2012. Their wedding was flawless. They fixed up a new house and he started his great engineering job. Then they got pregnant, and came back for homecoming with twinkling eyes and whispered the news to their close friends. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the ideal postgraduate narrative we’ve all co-written. However, that isn’t where their story ends at all. I must finish by telling you that they had a miscarriage. It doesn’t match the story. How can I parallel their beautiful wedding, success, and expectation of happiness with the pain and horror of losing a baby – the emotional trauma, physical exhaustion, and bitter disappointment they did their best to bear? 

I wouldn’t dare to lump all five hundred and ninety of you into one way of thinking, but I know enough about a lot of you to suppose that somewhere in your mind is seared a specific success story. This story doesn’t begin with a diploma today. It begins way, way back with the private preschools, violin lessons, Latin and Spanish, choir competitions, debate clubs, robotics tournaments, basketball championships, and the letter that came in the mail to welcome you here. It’s the momentum of success that your parents proudly began, the momentum you carried here. And your story today extends into the future, one you hope will be full of wealth, or fame, or acceptance, or adventure. A success story.

Whatever it is, I’m guessing that you’re clutching on to it today as you sit and sweat and celebrate and worry. Your story will have beauty and adventure, engagements and job offers, sure. But success and happiness is never the point, nor will it constantly be given to you. Your story will have a bewildering amount of confusion, darkness and death, things that can't be confidently posted on Facebook or pridefully summarized in all of the "what are you doing after you graduate" conversations. 

Amid your joys, your story will have its own tragedies of mental illnesses, natural disasters, debt, rebellious children, war, and broken marriages. Your experience here at college has not made you immune in the least. College has only distracted you as it fed the momentum that powered you through it all. Now we are here, and it is right to be afraid. More than celebrating a milestone, today marks the day where you must be responsible for how you respond to the weight of darkness that comes with living on this earth. You cannot do this alone.

///

A dear friend recently told me a story of a dark and fathomless ocean, with black waves roaring as an infinitely stormy sky churns overheard. In the middle of the ocean is one rock, and on the rock is a person. These brutal waves pound on this rock constantly. If the person were to stand up, they would immediately be swept out into the vast nothingness of the dark ocean, or pummeled to death on the sharp surface of the rock. Their only choice for survival at all it to press their entire body to the rock, gripping onto it in desperation as the cold waves tear at them hungrily. The bleak truth is that they cannot let go or they will certainly die. As she tells it, this is the essence of our human existence.

When I left behind a very hard summer job to move back home after graduating just to wade through underemployment and loneliness, my bitter question was, “why the ocean, Lord?” Why bother creating a fathomless, dark ocean of a world, full of failure, miscarriages and divorce? If life on earth is just a time of clinging to the rock before we die, why would God bother to create anything at all?

I said earlier that success was never the point. I meant it. Whatever you might have been told or told yourself while at this institution, the point is not businesses started, money saved, ideas published, or community cherished. As I cling fiercely to the rock during this season, the answer to my question becomes clear. The only point of the ocean is to draw us closer to the rock. Let me say that again so you really hear me. The only point of the ocean is to draw us closer to the rock. The terrifying waves and fathomless ocean draw us closer to God, to help us see and know, consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created this world. That’s from Isaiah 41. Friends, the point is glorifying God by clinging to him intimately. That is life. That is the point of everything.

///

My exhortation to you today is simple. Wherever you go, in joy and pain, you will find the Lord there waiting for you. There is an ocean, and only one rock, and there is glory to be given. When you create an app, write a book, wait tables, run a ministry or study plankton, you will find glory there to give back to the Lord. When you battle cancer, lose a grandparent, can’t have children, or struggle with crippling depression, you will find glory there to give back to the Lord.

If you do not choose to draw close to God in the circumstances you are bound to face in your lifetime, some of which are unique to this postgraduate time, I can promise that you will be pulled out into the vast ocean and carried away into the darkness of casual spiritual ambivalence and selfish ambition. You must daily choose either the ocean or the Lord. There is no other way to go through life on earth.

The sector you are going into does not need someone easily discouraged, entitled, stubborn, or addicted to success. We do not need more greedy doctors, lazy teachers, selfish accountants or unethical researchers. The powers of darkness already have plenty of those. The kingdom of God needs your willingness, not your willfulness. I encourage you as you walk across this stage away from your college experience and into the darkness of a fallen world to let go of needing a personal “happily ever after” and instead humbly lay down your life for God’s glory. It will be the most radical thing you will ever do.

My prayer for you all comes from Psalm 131:

O Lord, our hearts are not lifted up; our eyes are not raised too high; we do not occupy ourselves with things too great and too marvelous for us. But we have calmed and quieted our souls, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child are our souls within us. Oh class of 2014, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

Thank you, and God bless.

Advent meditation

Can you be haunted by heaven?

Can it follow you and hang on you until you must sit and ache until you can bear to go about your day again?

Hang your wreath, plug in your lights, yes. Then sit and be weary with me a while. It’s Christmas again and we’re still waiting for our King.

Sufjan Stevens, a man of questionable spiritual and artistic authority, aches with me in this song:

Lord, come with fire

Lord, come with fire

Everyone’s wasting their time

Storing up treasure in vain

Trusting the pleasure it gives here on earth

Oh I see the end

Oh I see the end

Everyone’s waiting for death

Not very cheerful for a Christmas song. But as we drive through a mall parking lot for a space, dizzied by the circular looping search for a space amid hundreds of pleasure-trusters, he might be quite right about this season’s particular storing-up nature. This time wasting business is fruitless. “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (Ecc. 2)

//

In T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Journey of the Magi,” his wise men are heavy with the reality of Jesus and his kingdom:

were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

My heart is quiet here, caught between chasing the wind and waiting for my Lord. There is nothing to say. I can only hope and wait in the promises I hold on to. Dwell here, because this is the essence of Christmas. He promised he would come, and he did. He promised to return. Now we wait again.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

No sermon today, friends. Just a heavy ache and a heart full of love for the coming King.

Wait and hope with me.

A heavy set of words.

This is a poem about every person.

The weight of existence presses in on me.

I can push it out with music for a while, but not forever.

To live is to be heavy with humanity.

Grocery list:

A baby is born.

My friend’s grandmother dies.

My brother goes to college.

My father goes to work.

A startup business fails.

A blip pings on a radar.

A leaf falls to the ground in my backyard.

You blink.

Keep moving or die; adapt or go extinct.

You do have a choice. To live is to avoid death by changing.

I applaud the founders of organizations and the inventors of gadgets:

they keep us moving. They keep us from thinking of death.

They build empires so they can crumble. It’s very diverting.

I’ve never cared to build an empire.

It’s much simpler to water grass and watch it die.

The subway churns past the homeless men sleeping in the shadows.

The policeman will come and wake them and make them find new shadows.

This makes him a good policeman.

This makes them bad people.

I wonder where the other shadows are.

I have smelled the perfume of death in New York:

Puffs of secondhand cigarettes from coffee lips,

A brisk chill blowing the stench of metal stained with the urine of schizophrenics.

My friend looks out at the city safely from the 54^th floor,

and I ride an elevator down into the world.

A man in the Columbus Circle tunnel is hungry and lonely.

I don’t want to be here anymore.

When I make eye contact with the woman sitting next to me,

I invite her out of the background and into my reality.

A man says “Bless you” when I sneeze.

We are doing very dangerous things here.

To live is to be heavy with existence.

Humanity hangs on you and follows you.

Babies are born. Grandmothers die. That man is still hungry right now.

Don’t think about it too much, or you will suffocate.

Play a game on your phone, get a job, save up, grow old.

It is much easier than thinking about this poem.

Keep moving.

That is all.

Proust questions

My friend Kimi, who was once my rebellious daughter in an awful play, keeps a blog (here's the link). It’s fun to have fellow bloggers who inspire you to keep at what you do. She passed this questionnaire on to me and challenged me to answer all of the questions. It’s a list of questions Marcel Proust suggests to help develop a story character. Here goes nothing!

1.       What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Sitting with my feet dangling in a creek. 

2.      What is your greatest fear?

Probably that I am both “too much” (too passionate, too crazy, too loud, too wordy) and “not enough” (not smart enough, not mature enough, not pretty enough). I think most of my insecurities begin at this intersection.

3.      What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

My dreams and my actions don’t line up. I love other cultures, but I’m not courageous enough to travel. I love being active, but have a hard time walking across the street to the gym. I love the Lord, but I don’t dare to be bold enough to share him with the people around me when it’s inconvenient. 

4.      What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Exclusion of any kind, whether it’s a tight, inflexible clique or an inside joke that isn’t explained. I value hospitality highly, which might be why I’m hyper-aware when it isn’t given to me.

5.      Which living person do you most admire?

Hilary Clinton. My grandparents. Anne and Becky.

6.      What is your greatest extravagance?

Not big extravagances, but many tiny ones, which is just as bad – curly hair products, perfume, sleeping in, candles, Chick-fil-a on my way back from working at the pool.

7.      What is your current state of mind?

Mellow and thankful. I just sipped French press coffee out of a teacup and read the Times in the sunshine. GLORIOUS.

8.     What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Having good taste. How dull.

9.      On what occasion do you lie?

When cashiers, waiters, and other such people I have no relationship with ask me how I’m doing and I decide not to tell them I’m in the middle of a life crisis.

10.  What do you most dislike about your appearance?

That I’m so beautiful it’s unfair to everyone else.

11.   Which living person do you most despise?

Joseph Kony. Other oppressive dictators. Any boy or girl who has broken the heart of a friend.

12.  What is the quality you most like in a man?

Having really crazy and beautiful dreams for his life that have been born out of his deep relationship with God. (Being the opposite of spiritually narrow-minded.)

13.  What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Same as #12

14.  Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

“Like,” “literally,” “legitimately,” “so pumped,” “derp”

15.   What or who is the greatest love of your life?

JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL! He is my everything!

16.  When and where were you happiest?

On a road trip down the Blue Ridge Mountains. I had packed lots of good books and was probably about 14 or 15, which is a bizarre and magical time to be a girl. Half the trip I was staring out the windows at trees and daydreaming beautiful stories about fairies and princesses and love. I was soaking up all those books and projecting them into the scenery. (Puberty is weird.) We went to this place called Graveyard Falls right at the golden time of day, before sunset. I remember sitting in a section of the creek, looking at the mountains and a huge waterfall before me, the water rushing around my body and through my fingers, the golden light all around, and a thin mist hanging over the valley that the stream cut through. I think I cried. (When you’re a girl and you’re 14 and you read too many books and have too many hormones, everything makes you cry.) All my best memories are associated with running water. Whenever I think about heaven, which is a lot, I imagine rivers and streams and waterfalls.

17.   Which talent would you most like to have?

Playing drums, preferably for a riot grrl band. I also have always wanted to be on a roller derby team but don’t think I would be any good.

18.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’d love to be really, really internally motivated. I’m much more motivated by community goals than individual ones, so when I’m living life just by myself a lot of the time, I don’t get as much done. It drives me crazy.

19.  What do you consider your greatest achievement?

The lasting relationships in my life, although that’s only 50% me. Writing a novel. Graduating college. The internships and jobs I’ve done well.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

A DOLPHIN

21.  Where would you most like to live?

I have no idea. I’m torn between the city and the woods. It’s a deep inner conflict. 

22. What is your most treasured possession?

My journals. And the only pair of jeans that actually fit me well. And my van Vanessa, but she doesn’t technically belong to me. (Emotionally, absolutely.)

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being completely alone for a very long season of time.

24. What is your favorite occupation?

DOLPHIN TRAINER. Or tour guide in some exotic location like Botswana. I dream of owning a bookstore or a café.

25.  What is your most marked characteristic?

My giant hair, or the animated way I speak and gesture. My strong (but easily changed) opinions.

26. What do you most value in your friends?

The person, the friendship itself, and their pursuit of me as a person. I never feel so loved as when I’m surprised by a letter or a call from someone important to me.

27.  Who are your favorite writers?

Madeleine L’Engle. Lousia May Alcott.

28. Who is your hero of fiction?

The fictional character I am most like is Jo March, obviously. And she is a hero.

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

See #27

30. Who are your heroes in real life?

See #5

31.  What are your favorite names?

Autumn. Felicity. Willow. Other sundry hipsterdom.

32. What is it that you most dislike?

Many things. I hate dumb conversations about dating and “your dream man.” Like…stop. Please. There are so many more important things to talk about. I hate pasta salad. I hate the sound of people chewing ice, so much so that I shuddered writing that. I hate slow drivers. I hate being told to calm down. I hate canned fruit. I hate Relient K’s new album. I hate it when people touch or run their fingers through my hair. I am the most cheerfully negative person I know.

33. What is your greatest regret?   

That I didn’t start journaling earlier in my life.

34. How would you like to die?

Quickly. Preferably Jesus takes me back before then, but if I do die, I’d rather die quickly (heart attack, getting shot, in my sleep, etc.) than slowly (drowning/falling/in a fire, etc.) I've given some thought to this because I’m very comfortable with the idea of death, which I think is important in order to live well. Other than birth, death is the most normal thing in the world, and thanks to Jesus, I have nothing to be afraid of.

35.  What is your motto?

“Plus Ultra.” It means loosely in Latin, “beyond this, there is more.” There’s a myth behind it that I won’t bore you with now, but it basically means that whenever I think I’m at a resting place or a dead end – whenever I think I have no further to journey – God will pull me deeper in, into his story, into more challenges, into growth and beauty and change and heartbreak and himself. It's the idea of hoping in the Lord, a Lord who is always making me more like himself.

Grab the Proust questionnaire here and link yours in the comments – I’d love to hear your answers!

things no one ever told me about being an adult

Something has happened to me in the past few months. Something that no one warned me about. Guys...I am an adult* now. And being an adult has brought along with it many weirdnesses and changes. I document the three biggest ones I've noticed in the last week here: not knowing what to do at the doctor, realizing I am an evil Jersey minivan driver, and finding young dads attractive. In your free time, pray for me, and read this so it doesn't happen to you too.

*I use this term very loosely

/// BIG KID DOCTOR VISITS

Going to the doctor alone once I got my license was weird enough. Co-pay? Insurance account number? What? Where is my mommy? No one ever gave me instructions on how to go to the dentist. I'm just sitting here, reading the February issue of People magazine trying to look adult-y and inconspicuous, and all I want is some clean teeth or for this cough to go away. Not trying to hurt anybody.

The first of my new adult complications: I have to fill out a document with all my medical history because I have to see my new grown-up doctor instead of the pediatrician. (Or so my mother and I have decided. I wonder though...at what point do pediatricians kick their patients out? Is there a limit? I wonder how long I could've lasted there!). This is when I realize that I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING. Who even am I? What was the name of that complex medicine I'm allergic to again? Eh who cares I won't fill that in. Ummm...wait have I ever gotten shots for avian flu? Or TB? Do I have legs? jk I actually know the answer to that last one. But seriously...isn't my mommy supposed to fill this out for me? Nope? Welcome to adulthood, I guess.

Next, I am horrified at this new adult office. There are no cute murals on the walls or Disney movies or bubblegum grape-flavored fluoride here. This is REAL LIFE and real life is TOUGH so in the adult world people only get MINT AND SADNESS flavored things and all the walls are GREY. When I get my X-ray taken, I don't "look at Minnie Mouse" for the picture, I look at the picture of a DOT. And excuse me...no goody bag? I'm disappointed, America. I want to walk away with free sample-sized floss whenever I frequent a dental establishment. I expected privileges when I became an adult. Now I just have this taste of sadness in my mouth, so if this is adulthood, I don't want it.

I won't even talk too much about the awkwardness that ensues when I am done with my appointment and try to schedule my next visit or pay for anything. For some reason I feel utterly incapable of making basic calendar decisions. I just raise an eyebrow and say adult words to the receptionist until she tells me what to do: "Hey! So...insurance...credit card...co-pay...visit...form...payroll...retirement...hedge fund...Medicare...potato?" And then run away as soon I can, feeling accomplished but also burdened with the responsibility of being medically responsible for myself. Such is the awkwardness of being 20.


/// REALIZING I AM A DRIVER FROM HELL

 It all starts so innocently. Some poor little person is trying to inch their way into oncoming traffic. I have pity, WWJD-style, as I am instructed to do as a Christian, but I can tell right away that I have made a grave mistake. You are the rare Dodo Bird of Drivers, and I have just trapped the 50 other cars behind me in some funeral-esque 22mph parade for the eternity of the next 5 minutes. Jesus, the inventor of WWJD, would've just cut him off in the spirit of doing unto others. I was not nearly so wise.

The next step in the "Being Nice To Drivers Who Don't Deserve It" rage spiral is to formulate some awful story for this person's idiocy so you feel justified in riding their ass all the way down Route 27. Maybe they just moved here from a foreign country and are having trouble adjusting to speed limits. Or their car is rigged with a bomb, Speed-style, where if they go over 22 mph they will explode. Either way, they shouldn't be out driving with the normal people.

I am certainly not alone in my frustrations: the car behind me makes direct eye contact with me in my rearview mirror and we share a moment. It is clear during this interaction that their anger is 50% directed toward the Slow Idiot and 50% to me, the Idiot Who Let Them In. I'M SORRY EVERYBODY. I'M JUST SO SORRY, OKAY?

There are now three options to choose from in proceeding with this issue.
1. Relax and drive and just deal with it.
...........But seriously LOL I really for real can't do that
2. Try to make eye contact with them in their side mirror to convey your frustration at their lethargic pace, and also communicate your disappointment: Hey. I thought we had an agreement here. I showed you great mercy in letting you join this wild ride we call driving down a street. You were supposed to fulfill your end of this contract by complying with state speed limits. Now you've just let us all down. Badly done, Dodo Bird. Badly done.
3. Play this song as loud as your speakers will go with all your windows rolled down.*
*DON'T EVER DO THIS

It didn't used to be like this. Back when I was first cruisin' around Central NJ in my green minivan, I braked for STICKS. I sat at stop signs until everyone else went first so that there was no way of a potential collision. I made left turns at a slow-motion speed only known to sloths. In the rare instance that I ever braved Route 1 or 287, I camped out in the right lane like a toddler clinging to the side of a skating rink as people whiz past.

But now, in a reverse-evolutionary twist, the prey has now become the predator, and my transformation is complete. The frightened permit driver is now a bona fide grown-up Jersey road bully, left hand constantly hovering over my horn should someone dare to cross me. And on the rare occasion I deign to be kind to some dumb dodo who's sticking out too far into oncoming traffic and he ends up failing all of us, you better believe that I will tailgate him out of this state, where he can go annoy everyone in PA or something, where driving is not life or death. Hunt or be hunted, buddy. I'm a big girl now. Sorry not sorry.


/// HOTT DADZ

This last terrifying occurrence initially inspired this post. There I was, minding my own business in Costco going to visit my optometrist (TRYING TO LOOK INCONSPICUOUS AND NOT LIKE A LITTLE KID) when some fiiiiine piece of man cake rolls up with his SUV-sized shopping cart. He's got quinoa and spinach up in there...damn. WHO ARE YOU, MYSTERIOUS HOTT MAN?? Was I wrong all this time? Are there attractive 20something men in New Jersey wandering around alone in Costcos, looking for great prices on healthy bulk items, cheese samples AND looking for that special lady in their lives? Men who are wearing a band t-shirt of a band I respect? Is it true? Are we going to fall in love and form a punk band and film our music video in the vegetable walk-in fridge, and then sell copies of our EP in the bargain CD section? CAN IT BE?

The answer, of course, is no. It's too good to be true. For as I fish around for some reason to call out to him with a quinoa-related pickup line, yknow, so that I can get a closer look at his tatted sleeve and see if he put a Bible verse in there somewhere so I can decide whether or not we should get married, I hear the dreaded word coming from behind him:

"DADDY!"

No. No no no...but alas -- he squats down, beaming, and picks up his little child who has been lollygagging behind him. He's...he's...a DAD. As he and his daughter spin around to Disney music that only I can hear because I am making it up in my head, I slink further down in my seat and basically question my entire life. Well, actually, it can be boiled down into one terrifying thought: "am I allowed to think that young dads are hott with two t's now?" To make it worse, his wife rolls up with their two other children in a dual-pod stroller, diaper bag and toys in tow, so now I am not only committing some sort of awkward adultery -- of the tattoo admiration/grocery choice appreciation variety -- but also now have the fully adult capacity to be attracted to a man who has been on this earth long enough to father three children.

Excuse me while I shrivel up and die.

xoxo Jo

///


That's all I got so far. What do you find most noticeable (good and bad) about suddenly being an adult?

STILL ALIVE

Just in case you're wondering...definitely not dead. Haven't written on the ol' blog here for over a month, which is an unprecedented gap of insight-less, musings-free time, like...7 years in social media years. It's because not much has changed.

Still looking for full-time work. Not sure what I want to do, but have stopped prioritizing self-actualization above self-gettingmybuttingearization. I may or may not have 45 different versions of my resume. I may or may not have an Excel sheet with every job I've applied to so far so I can keep track of them all and not get them confused with each other...like I did that one time. "Hi, hiring team at XYZ! I'm really interested in the position at ABC..." Whoops.

Still working two part-time jobs. Both of which are unglamorous and slow-going, and one of which has me in my basement staring at my laptop trying to be profound and persuasive. I am not good at this a majority of the time. Most days the easy task of rewriting something feels absolutely impossible. Most adult tasks feel absolutely impossible.

Still very sick. Going on over a month. I'm 100% sure that part-time job #2 has made this happen...a toxic cocktail of toddler germs, warm pool water and a badly functioning salt filtration system = pneumonia for life. I'm a dead woman by Christmas. It was nice knowing you all.

Still going to Redeemer Church. That's cool. Nothing sad there except that I wish I were really actually for real in the city, instead of a commuter poser. I love that church.

Still in Jersey. It's cold here, and the leaves are pretty. And all my friends are gone or too busy except for Sachau. Other than that, nothing's changed.

Still a bit disillusioned and depressed. BUT my life does not suck. I am not a Syrian refugee or a Ugandan child soldier. I'm doing fine. I love my family and am not in any physically life-threatening condition. I would like life to be interesting and fun and purposeful and people-filled, but those are externals. More than anything in the world, I would love a job. And for all of my best friends to not attend a college where compulsive busyness is the normal lifestyle and not considered a behavioral disorder. Again, externals, because having a job and a full social calendar has never made me happy before.

Still loving God. Hoping in his return. Praying while I wait. Not trying to overdramatize this underemployment phase, but just doing my best to wait well, even when I feel pretty lame or unproductive or unimportant.

Still having to remind myself daily that I AM 20 FREAKING YEARS OLD and I've only been home for barely three months. I do not have to have this figured out...ever. This is not an emergency.

Still learning that humility means having nothing to offer...which is great, because I am running on empty of the dynamic personality, oodles of talent, popularity, wisdom and energy that I've been lying to myself about having up til now. Learning to let go of my shame of having a disappointing life that weirdly inhibits me from wanting to reach out and love people out of my own lameness.

Still trying to ignore my unhelpful inner self-commentary as I fail and fail again. Being okay with not being a big deal. Not needing my life to be a movie, or for it to look like the lives of peers who have graduated from the same college as me. I am owed nothing.

Still here. Still alive. Still wondering. Still waiting. Still okay.

This will all make sense later, right?

The Perks of Being Unemployed

There’s a movie called Perks of Being a Wallflower that came out within the last few years or so. If you went to see the movie, you either went because you have a crush on Emma Watson (guy or girl, it doesn’t matter) or you wanted to find out the perks, because you are a wallflower. SPOILER ALERT, WALLFLOWERS: There are no perks! So I just ruined it for you. If that movie taught me anything, it was that the perks of being a wallflower include:

-General angst

-Terrible childhood trauma

-Making poor life decisions

-Falling in love with Emma Watson but not telling her until the last five minutes of the movie and then she goes off to college anyway which leads us back to where we started:

-General angst

Let me be clear: THOSE ARE NOT PERKS. Whoever wrote that book was lying. I’m going to lay out some real perks of real life. Here is some honesty for ya. These are…

THE PERKS OF BEING 

(in my case, partially) 

UNEMPLOYED

(Cue 90s folk ballad, artsy direction, slouchy beanie, Emma Watson)

(No, let’s get rid of Emma. Pretty sure she’s employed.)

ONE // YOU’RE NOT BORING YET. Your future hasn’t been decided for you by the job gods yet, so technically you’re still not locked into what the rest of your life is supposed to be. You’re in limbo, which is kind of cool! Don’t they make sci-fi movies about that sort of stuff? Like, being trapped in between two dimensions? Yeaah. That’s basically your life. OOH! So you could tell people you’re a dimension traveler or a time warlock! Not boring. Boom.

TWO // YOU DON’T DREAD MONDAYS! I was just eating some food and stuff in NYC with some random new acquaintances after church and they all were talking about was how much they hated Mondays. It was a thrilling 5 minutes of originality, one that enlightened me as to the dullness of jobby conversations. Hey jobby person! My unemployed tushie will still be in bed when you’re stuck on the train or in the car going to work, and I’ll be dreaming sweet dreams about what having one of those mythical jobs is like. I have nothing to dread. Sucks for both of us?

THREE // YOU DON’T HAVE TO COMMUTE. You don't have to deal with Traffic or The MTA or The Parkway or ANYTHING. Your life is defined by the freedom of being able to conveniently work on all those mediocre versions of your cover letter from the safety of your laptop. Commute = 6 feet from your bed to your desk. Awesome. Doesn’t even require pants.

FOUR // YOU DON’T HAVE TO PACK/BUY YOUR LUNCH. I don’t have to worry about eating a PB+J in front of rich coworkers like a loser, not do I feel the peer pressure to go out and buy a fancy $11 salad from Pret to look like a grown-ass woman who’s got her life together. I don’t have to wait in line for an office microwave or haul my Tupperware container and eco-friendly reusable fork in my 80-lb Mary Poppins purse for the rest of the day. I can eat in the privacy of my own kitchen, with my dog at my feet. Jealous? Well, I’m jealous of your job. We’ll call it even.

FIVE // YOU CAN READ THIS BLOG. Let’s be real. If you were employed at a jobby job, you would hit your snooze button until you absolutely had to drag yourself out of bed, go on that horrid aforementioned commute, work work work at your job and try not to cry or question the meaninglessness of life, come home, eat everything, sit in front of your computer/smartphone /TV until 9:30pm, when you begin to feel a little tired and go to sleep questioning your lab-rat-like existence. Ain’t nobody got time to read blog posts in between all that grownup-ness! Especially my posts, because they tend to be hella long. But without a job, go ahead and spend all day reading blogs. Live your life.

SIX // EVERYONE FEELS SORRY FOR YOU. No, this is not a bad thing! Pity from well-meaning relatives or people you meet is a great opportunity for taking up a love offering in the form of food, clothes, hope, money, etc. Work on your best puppy dog face and talk about being a millennial liberal arts grad in This Economy. Capitalize the T and the E…it helps. Work on your tears. Then you can put “panhandling” and “emotional manipulation” on your skills section of your resume, which we all know still needs a little extra padding anyway if you’re going to land that entry-level dream job.

SEVEN // YOU’RE TOO UN-LABEL-ABLE FOR A LABEL. BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE ONE. I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m not an Analyst or a Program Coordinator or an Executive Associate. Or even an Intern. Lady, I am a Metaphorical Unicorn Prancing through a Magical Land of Uncertainty Battling Doom, Depression and Broke-ness…from which I shall certainly emerge victorious and jobby and cooler than you. Optional responses to polite inquires about what you do for a living include: “I’m looking for work, but I don’t think it’s looking for me” or “I’m currently dodging social norms as an experiment on the meaning of group-constructed reality…so actually I need to leave this conversation bye”

EIGHT // YOU’VE DITCHED YOUR ENTITLEMENT FOR YOUR DIGNITY. By this point of your career in unemployment – which, really, feels more like a career every passing day – you’ve stopped applying to jobs like you can just snap your fingers and have them begging for you at your feet. That is soooo 2012. You’ve let go of your shackles of feeling Special and Unique and Different from the other applicants. You’re okay with being just another guy in a long list of interviews. Congratulations, you are now an adult, humbly holding on to your dignity and grasping a realistic perspective of your place in the universe. Awesome! Most adults take YEARS AND YEARS to get to this level of emotional enlightenment, but they got jobs right after graduation and never got a chance to do some deep soul-searching until their secretary-affair-red-convertible midlife crisis at 54. Boom. You beat them to the punch, and saved yourself from ruining your marriage and wasting your money in the future. That’s waaaay better than having a job. Right?

NINE // YOU CAN PRETEND YOU ARE THE PROTAGONIST IN AN INDIE FILM. It’s raining, and you’re going back to the mall to return a pair of pants you can’t fit into? It’s the only time you’ve left the house today? Crank up that Bon Iver, and stare longingly out the window through the raindrops at the hot guy waiting for the bus. [You may or may not be wearing a slouchy beanie.] He might look up and you’ll make eye contact and he’ll smile. Magical. It’s the beginning of a beautiful unemployed love story. Annnnd….CUT! Okay, so you have a lot of good BEGINNINGS for indie romcoms. Maybe you need to work on those endings. But hey, every great hipster started out in a coffee shop somewhere, inevitably with Bon Iver playing in the background, making hot eye contact with strangers and living in their parents’ basement teaching themselves some ethnic instrument to drown out their postgrad angst. You can too. If you’re lucky, Wes Anderson might secretly record it and turn it into Moonrise Kingdom 2: All Grown Up and Still Awkward.

TEN // YOU CAN TAKE CRAZY RISKS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. I currently teach swim lessons, do some freelance writing for my grandma, volunteer with Hope for New York as a grant research assistant, and started going to a church that is an hour and a half away from me in another state. I’m flirting with the idea of going to Oregon or Hawaii for an intensive kayaking whitewater course, or spending six months in Africa. On Wednesday, I was hanging out in a bar in NYC with 20 people I had never met before. I also take naps, cuddle with my puppy, exercise a lot, call friends, and watch lots of movies…pretty much whenever I want. People with jobs would kill to trade lives with me for a few weeks. Instead of my life being a stately, organized orchestral opus, my life is a jazz piece being made up as I go along. No rules. No boundaries. [Except for the fact that I live at home.] This kind of freedom is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m trying to embrace this limitlessness and let it take me where it will. Which might be Africa. Take that, Jobbers.

Did I miss anything? Are there other perks of being unemployed? Tell me how you’re rocking it in the comments.

Questing into a Magical Land of Uncertainty,

xoxo Jo