By: Isabel Brush-Mindell
The experiences of a twenty-something-year-old: Simultaneously universal and fiercely personal. Anonymous and soul-bearing.
She graduates from an elite university. Everyone seems to be in a race to secure a prestigious, high-paying job. Peers send out tens or sometimes hundreds of applications. She doesn’t know what she wants to do. It feels like she’s supposed to have her life path figured out. But she’s never really had the chance to live “real life”, much less know what her’s should look like. So she applies like everyone else. Gets a job. Chooses to stay because of her boyfriend and family and friends. She has a pull to explore and adventure and grow, but these are important relationships. And the job furthers her career and gives her financial independence. So she stays. And overtime she becomes comfortable.
She applies for a program abroad. It’s half hearted. She forgets about it in the busyness of her everyday. But one day, an acceptance. She faces another decision. A difficult one. Everyone she cares about is here. She has grown in her job, has finally gotten the hang of it. She is financially comfortable. And yet, there is this pull she can’t ignore. The program abroad pays terribly and is not what she wants to do for her future career. But it is an opportunity for adventure and she can’t get it out of her head. She goes.
And she knows no one and the language is stiff on her tongue and she stumbles through the norms of this foreign culture. She is humbled daily. But over time, acquaintances become close friends, and she can understand the rushed speech on the street. She learns how to navigate what was once foreign.
She is back in her hometown. Deciding again. She fell in love with the life she constructed for herself abroad. The city. The culture. Her friends. But another year of that job won’t further her career. And she left so many rich relationships back home. Her options now span 6,000 miles and 9 hours of time zones. It feels like the threading of a precarious needle. Relationships. Self growth. Career. Finances. The rarity with which these aspects of life all seem to coincide is horribly frustrating. But she has to choose. To thread the needle and decide what life will look like next.
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