Crash Course in What I Don’t Want

So… it has been a while since I blogged. At the time that I am writing this, I am at a campsite in my van with no service, so I don’t even know when the last time I blogged was. It must have been after graduation back in June! Anyways, a lot has happened for me since then; and honestly, it has been a rough 6 months or so.

 About three weeks after graduation, I moved out to New York City by myself, and a week later I started teacher training to be a middle school science teacher in Harlem. It was a crazy ride post a covid senior year, and at the time I thought it would be a fun and challenging change of pace. Well, I was right on with teaching being a challenge. There were moments of fun, but ultimately with that job, I was an under-prepared, under-supported teacher who had no idea how to manage a classroom. After about two months and being thrown to the wolves, I mean literally put in front of a class by myself three weeks after kids arrived and only one week after moving from seventh grade to fifth grade, I asked for more support from the school leadership. I wanted them to know I was struggling so that they could provide me with more support. Ultimately, I really thought about it and envisioned a perfectly behaved classroom and still didn’t feel excited or inspired by the job, so I handed in my two weeks’ notice. Telling those kids that I was leaving was the hardest day on the job but looking back on it a don’t regret my decision one bit. I have so much more respect for teachers now, you are all doing amazing work!

 The week after my last day felt like waking up from a fever dream. Like the last three and a half months had been some alternate reality that I was operating in and I had finally broken free. It was a wonderful couple of weeks, but then I got a bit too bored and needed a job to keep me occupied and pay the rent, so I started working as a hostess at a restaurant on the Upper West Side. This was a great time while I was there but was barely covering rent and I still felt like I wasn’t contributing enough to the world, nor was I happy. So, I decided to quit that and move back home at Christmas.

 Basically, all my time in New York was a crash course in what makes me unhappy and unfulfilled, which is useful if not the most exciting takeaway. I had these grand visions of my first job out of college being this gateway into the wonderful world of freedom and making a difference for those around me. I had fantasies about having my local spots and connecting with co-workers and then coming home and feeling fulfilled and productive. In reality, I came home to do more work and go to bed and rarely left my apartment aside from work and groceries. This isn’t to say that I couldn’t have had those things in New York if I really wanted to, but I couldn’t imagine myself living a life I wanted in the big city. At Thanksgiving, my dad, older brother, and I were talking about my situation, and my older brother said, “You just need to ball out in New York for the last month.” I thought about that a lot over the next couple of days and I just couldn’t imagine what that would look like for me. I mean sure I could imagine what someone else might do in my situation, concerts, partying, brunch, dinner out. None of that appealed to me though… I did go to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway, which was amazing! Nothing else felt exciting to me.

 All this being said, I don’t regret my time in New York.

Knowing what I do know would I have taken that path? No.

Do I think I would have learned as much about myself and what I need to feel fulfilled in a different situation? Also, no.

New York wasn’t the greatest time in my life, but I do think it will make creating a life that I truly enjoy that much easier.

The moral of this story is, difficult times will come, and they won’t be fun, but they provide us with valuable information to help us build the lives we truly enjoy.

So, what were my takeaways from my time as a New Yorker?

-       A connection to nature is important to me

-       A connection water is important to me

-       I need to feel like I am contributing to a larger solution in my job

-       I need to like in a place with fun free things to do (ie: parks, hikes, hanging out with friends)

-       I need to have good friends around me

-       I enjoy living in a quiet place

-       I need to get outside every day