Those close to me seem to have picked up on the fact that I'm drowning in a sea of uncertainty, impending adultness, and impossible standards. This has probably been evidenced by my frantic register-and-study routine for basically every grad school entrance exam ever created (except for the MCAT -- I was an English major, come on) in an attempt to fall back into the comfortable role of successful student.
My poor mother has (understandably) gotten basically exhausted of watching me flounder around the dining room, moodily clutching Princeton Review books and information packets from NYU. After probably convening with all of her friends about what to do with 22 year old children that occasionally collapse on the couch wailing about success and the American dream, she decided to make an appointment for me with a career counselor. Since my alma mater(s) are extensible drives, my mom went for the next best option and had me penciled in at the local community college (FML).
Truth be told, however, I've been getting desperate also, and I grudgingly agreed to drag myself into the highly, uh, diverse part of town in hopes of a magic solution from some sort of magic eight ball of life. This particular eight ball, it turned out, was named Edith, and Edith didn't really understand me.
"So, what do you want to do?" she asked me.
"I don't know," I told her. "I thought about law school, but I don't know if I see myself doing that. I like to write, but I just don't know."
"So you don't know what you want to do?"
"No..."
"You don't know at all?"
Edith was really not getting the answers she wanted, and with time she started to see where this was going (i.e., that I didn't know what I wanted to do). She decided to move to a new tactic.
"Let's use our school job search!"
"Okay," I said, getting hopeful again. This sounded like it could lead to some definitive answers.
"Now you get to search by how much money you want to make," Edith said slowly, over-enunciating as if she was explaining why it's important to write in cursive. She swirled the cursor around, making sure to highlight each step of the process. "See, you can click on $40,000, and it will show you jobs in Florida that pay that much."
Now I was getting kind of confused. The little option boxes started at $30,000 and ended at "$100,000 and up."
"Um, I want $100,000 and up," I said, clicking the lowermost box.
"Are you sure?" Edith asked me, narrowing her eyes. "Are you sure those are the jobs you're interested in?"
"Yeah, I'd rather make $100,000 and up, if I had to choose."
Edith looked exasperated. She wanted us to move on to a computerized career aptitude test instead. I was starting to think that a desk-bound chunk of technology might be more on-point than Edith, so I agreed.
Foiled again! This test was created sometime in the dark ages, and it set right out to figure out whether I was a MAN or not. Would you enjoy laying tile? Nope. Would you enjoy overseeing a construction site? No. Would you enjoy building cabinets? No. Would you enjoy operating heavy machinery? Fuck no. At this point the computer suddenly caught on, and it decided to put this goddam woman in her place. Would you enjoy posing for photographers? No.... Would you enjoy caring for the elderly? No. Would you enjoy caring for the sick? Nope. Would you enjoy comforting the injured? No? What the fuck? Would you like to be a nurse? I gave up. I told Edith I really wanted to finish this test, but I needed to save it so I could log in from home when I had more time. She agreed. She handed me a brochure on vocational education (a common path after you've invested four years' time and money on a bachelor's?) and I hurried out, glancing at my watch as though I'd forgotten an appointment for life-saving surgery.
I vaguely explained to my mom that I'd "gained insight" and slunk defeatedly away to mass-produce more coverletters and pore over my GMAT, GRE, and LSAT books, respectively.
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