From the kitchen table

This was not the first time nor the last time I have cried at the kitchen table. The kitchen is correctly labelled as the heart of every home where everyone tends to gather. It’s where we celebrate birthdays, eat family dinners, and where we’ve all done our homework one time or another. I remember sitting at my kitchen table with my dad, frustrated tears running down my cheeks, trying to do my fourth grade math homework. Now I’m crying in front of my parents about adult problems that the girl crying over a math equation would never thought she would face.

2022 has not been an easy year for me personally. I should be happy that I’ve graduated from college, but I was dreading it before it even happened. I went into college with a major already picked out and stuck with it until the very end. I doubted it many times but I didn’t want to do anything else. I felt that I had already put too much effort in it to quit and I believed that I wouldn't be good at anything else. I thought of it as a degree I could do anything with. There’s so much you can do with a journalism degree, as long as you put in the work. I could do social media, content writing for businesses, or anything that had to do with communications. There were so many paths I could take, but none of them spoke to me in a TV-show-written-"this-is-my-sign" way. Needless to say, the end was on the horizon and I did not have a plan after graduation. Some of my peers were in the same boat as me, others already had jobs lined up for them. I started to get anxious about my laziness and lack of direction. I didn’t know what I was passionate about anymore because it felt like my last year of college was spent going through the motions. I have always coasted on the mindset of “it’ll work out in the end, I have time to figure it out," like the true procrastinator I am.

After I walked across the stage and accepted my diploma, things took a turn for the worse. I moved in with my parents where I had no friends close by and my boyfriend of a year broke up with me a week after I moved in. I spent the first month at home wallowing and icing my first heartbreak. I was unemployed and lonely, with an infinite amount of time to think of where I went wrong in my life and in my relationship (woe is me!) Once July arrived, I needed a job no matter what it was. Finding a job in my field seemed daunting and distant when I needed something immediate.

I found a waitressing job and started three days after I applied. It was nice to finally have a purpose and be busy enough to not be sad. I met some great people and we became close friends, spending most of our free time together. My goal was to leave this job by October. This was a temporary job that I was working in order to save up until I find a job that suits my career goals. I knew that all my coworkers wanted to leave as well, which motivated me to start looking again. Once all of the coworkers that I had gotten attached to started to leave, I felt abandoned. I knew this was coming, but I thought that I would be right there with them. I thought I would find my next big opportunity. I know they didn’t do this on purpose, but it just felt like another stab at my already fragile self-esteem. My other friends from college and high school started getting jobs in their field, which made me feel even worse.

So here I am, still at my serving job, trying to make myself stand out to job recruiters. I cry every week, feeling like I’m not good enough for any job I apply for. I needed something that I could show my writing skills and strengthen them, since I am no longer a student receiving assignments every week. I decided to start this blog and treat it as a sort of marketing campaign for myself. I want to show people that I am passionate about writing, despite the let downs and rejection emails I get. And if I'm being honest, writing resumes and cover letters are horrible tasks!

This is not me throwing a pity party. This is inspiring me to get out there and write. Even though I took a little time to cry at the kitchen table again and feel sorry for myself, I want this to change my trajectory. I know that I am mean for something great, I just need to give myself time to find it and work for it.