The Real World

While browsing through my blog today, I came across this little gem of a quote:

"Whenever you tell someone you've graduated college, and they say "Welcome to the real world", it really bugs me. Are they assuming that my world for the past 22 years has been unreal? Are they hoping that it will suddenly occur to me that I've been living in a dreamworld since I was born? Because it's not going to happen. The earth didn't implode as I walked across the stage in my cap and gown, and I'm still learning from life every single day - just without those pesky professors and long research papers. Shouldn't that make my life better?"

-Sweet, naive me, January 2011.

My, have things changed.

Right now I'm eating my hat.

I'm the pot, calling the kettle black.

I'm eating a spoonful of crow. (Is that right?)

I was wrong.

November 1st I will have been gainfully employed full-time in my first "grown up" job for 6 months. And as much as I hated when people would tell me that being out of college and working full-time is a different world, I know now that it is.

And I really really hated when people told me that.

But as much as I hate to admit it, they were right.

I think back to the time frame that I wrote that blog entry. I was on a DisneyWorld high, I had just made bank at the restaurant during the Christmas season, I was paying $270 dollars for rent A MONTH and I had a great time galavanting around Edmond and Oklahoma City, eating fancy sushi dinners and drinking wine and going on dates....

Sidenote: Now that I think about that season of my life, all of the girls that I lived with were having kind of a crazy time. Maybe my behavior was the product of my environment.

Now that I have been in my job 6 months I realize that I have joined a new league of adult.

I have to go to bed at a decent time, I have to shower every day, I have to wear professional clothes.

I have to pay my rent, bills, and I have to pay for my car whenever it breaks down (before my parents were taking care of my $600 car bill for new brakes. Now I have to pay it when it overheats and stops in the middle of the road).

I can't go on vacation to Destin or College Station whenever I so choose and I have to budget my money and learn how to succeed in my job and make my co-workers happy. There's so much to balance and take care of that it's overwhelming at times.

But honestly, this is going to mean NOTHING to anyone that hasn't joined the "Real World".

You could have stood in front of me with a chainsaw and I wouldn't have changed my mind. (I don't know what you would have done with the chainsaw but you get the general idea)

Not saying that being grown-up is a bad thing. It's not. It's just - different. I have different expectations and standards of myself as an employee, a friend, a daughter and a woman.

I have more self respect and I may not know what I want out of life but I sure as hell know what I don't want.

It's funny how much I've changed since this time last year. I'm glad I have the sense and the time and the need to reflect on who I am and who I am becoming as a person.

And although the "The Real World" sucks at times, I wouldn't be anywhere else.

Mal xoxo