Tiffany Phelan

Post graduation it honestly seems like everyone has it together and is falling apart all at once. Even the kids that had it all throughout high school, the ones in the relationships they were convinced would last forever, the ones with the parents who bought their first car. Even the kids who went to University on a full ride, everyone still seems incredibly confused. Which makes sense its because we are.

School kept us busy, constantly chasing our tails for that higher grade, there was so much emphasis on the build up. On finishing and being at the top, no one questioned it, so no one got told what happens next. No one bothered to ask what good a 4.0 gpa does if you don’t know where the hell your passion lies because all your energy went into maintaining it over the last 12 years rather than finding out what you love. 

So we all finished the rat race called school, and found out that it was actually a miniature funnel that was leading up to the giant crap shoot called life. The one our parents had been existing in over the last, 20 some ought years, and within a few months we all of a sudden gained a sudden clarity as to why our parents will flip shit over the cups being in the wrong place in the dish washer. Its because their lives are kind of miserable and we were always too wrapped up with the next upcoming assignment and test to open our eyes and realize it.

So now were in it with them, working a 9-5 for forty hours a week and making a shitty paycheque that somehow your one hundred dollar phone bill and bottle of shampoo entirely eats up. And finally we understand, the “crap shoot” where we are at the mercy of fate and our own ability to get our stuff together and be successful. And the harsh realization is the one where it hits us; school didn’t prepare us for any of this. Hell, I didn’t even file my taxes this year because I didn’t know how.

Basically, I’m just as confused as the next person and along with the entire graduating class of 2019, as well as the class of 2018 and 2017 and okay you get what I mean. The pressure to figure it out is real, who wants to be stuck in their hometown with their head up their ass until they’re 63 at which point they’ll decide to move to a retirement town that’s even smaller just because they’ve become accustomed to a small world so now it seems normal and entirely too expansive. Thats a load of depression, but what does that knowledge do for you if getting from point C to D in the next phase of your life (whatever the hell that may be) seems entirely too profound.

Hopefully you weren’t looking for a breakthrough in this, I literally just wanted you to know that if you’re feeling like you’re going the wrong way and have been since grad… join the club. And hey at least we aren’t alone in it, after all misery loves company.