During this first year out on my own, I must admit: I’ve learned quite a few things. The proper way to grocery shop (although, a busy store can still make my insides burn with frustration), how to maneuver rush hour traffic, how long a car can go without being serviced, how to buy and renovate a house with navy ceilings, how to maintain long distance friendships and accept the fact many will stay that way, how to literally survive a terrible bout of the coronavirus, and, unfortunately, the art of turning in my resignation.
Merely one year after graduating college and starting my time in the workforce, I'm on my fourth job. I'm on my fourth "season of life." I'm on my fourth boss, my fourth set of coworkers, my fourth work environment, and my fourth reset to a life I thought I had figured out long ago.
See, that's because I decided very early on that I wanted to work in a job that would allow me to write. Writing was the only thing that felt purposeful to me, the only thing I really thought I was good at. In high school, I spent all my time in the pool or with a bass drum strapped onto my chest - neither of which were long term pursuits of mine. Teaching didn't resonate with me, the mere thought of a doctor's office puts me into a coma, law school terrified and bored me at the same time, and any corporate business environment made me feel nauseous. I latched onto this dream that I would one day be an editor at a publishing firm. (I will also admit I did once want to be the White House press secretary, but absolutely not anymore do I want that job.) So, I went to Ouachita to get degrees in communications and English writing.
As so many of my friends, and therefore hopefully readers, know, I landed an internship at a magazine publishing firm right out of graduation. I started the Monday after finals and commuted to Little Rock every single day for six weeks before moving here full time. And on the second day, I sat at the kitchen table after dinner to cry. I couldn't stop crying over the reality of this dream I'd had for so long. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be. Writing had become monetized...it wasn't this quirky and creative profession that allowed you to tell stories worthy of being told. And the harsh realization hit that this was just where we're at as a society. In order to publish, the wallet has to back you up. It made sense! Still, it was heartbreaking to me.
I realized that first week I couldn't stay. I learned so quickly how diminishing to the spirit it was to slowly kill your passion every single day by doing a job that stole its value. I told loved ones around me this metaphor: writing as a profession was like swimming as a sport. I never liked pool parties as a child, because I most likely had just spent an hour swimming laps at practice. The "job" of swimming competitively took the fun out of water. And of course, for some, this wasn’t what writing as their career felt like. But sadly, it did for me.
Two months in, I experienced my first real resignation, worked my two weeks (nobody prepared me for the awkward that was), and then left the office one last time to drive straight to Barnes and Noble and wipe away tears of doubt while I perused through the bookshelves, spending nearly $200 I didn't have on books I didn't need. Pitiful. I just couldn't help but feel as though I was mourning an undergraduate degree of work that went to waste.
And also, I can't tell you enough how awful and demeaning it is to apply for entry-level jobs. The thought of entering that market again, just two months after my first venture, destroyed my self confidence. Oh, you graduated from college with honors? How about minimum wage, no time off, and you have to do whatever the staff doesn’t want to do, regardless of what your job responsibilities are! It truly blows me away how many jobs I would see on LinkedIn like that, asking for the highest requirements and then the salary would be $20K, no benefits, and the job responsibilities were laughable. I understand proving yourself and working your way up, but haven't we passed that idea of not recognizing the necessities of LIFE? Off my soap box I go.
A few days later, I started my second career at a florist in Little Rock. And I'm embarrassed to say that job lasted a total of four weeks. On one of my first afternoons at the shop, I was wandering through the display cases, straightening vases and packs of napkins and silk blooms when a familiar song came over the speakers. It was an instrumental piece that I could never guess the name to, but I knew immediately it was one my dad played in Mary and Martha's. I knew it so well, I felt like I could sing along with the instruments. And AGAIN, I'm embarrassed to say I started crying in that store. As coworkers started telling me about what Valentine's is like in Little Rock, my stomach started to churn. I didn't want to work Valentine's or Mother’s Day or Christmas Open House at another store...I couldn't imagine staying late into the night helping another shop when my own family was working at ours.
So God provided a way, and two weeks in, I turned in my two weeks notice after a scared and tearful phone conversation with my parents, who encouraged me every second. After a week to myself spent reading and journaling and cleaning (I named it my very own personal honeymoon), I began my third job at a family-owned marketing company. I felt very welcomed as I walked into my very own office on the first day, ready to see how this job might be God's answer to my desperate prayers for purpose. But I quickly realized I didn't know where this was going; my communications degree was speech oriented, not strategic marketing. I began to wonder: did I make big mistakes at Ouachita, studying what I did? I chose my degrees purely based on what I was good at and what made me feel like I was intelligent and had valuable insight. Should I have been more strategic, more sensible?
A few months in, I had this moment of pure sadness. I was delivering something to Chenal Country Club for one of our companies. As I parked my car, I thought about the last time I was there. Just weeks after my Ouachita senior Homecoming, I was the student speaker for "Stepping Up For Ouachita." I had just completed my role as student director of Tiger Tunes, and I was so excited to share a little piece of my Ouachita story with those who loved their experience just as I did. In those three minutes on stage, I felt at home. I felt valuable and wanted. I felt like God had given me an ability to write the words I speak, to tell stories He allowed me to live, and to communicate well to those in front of me and those you actually wanted to listen to me.
And here I was, a year later, just delivering boxes for a job I knew I wasn't good at. I drove away with tears on my cheeks.
Again, God provided a way through opportunities I never dreamed would be handed to me. After a very quick turnaround over Christmas break, I began my fourth job as an executive assistant in Governor Asa Hutchinson’s office. Every morning, I park across the street from the State Capitol and walk through the neatly trimmed landscapes to enter my office. I work not ten feet outside of the Governor’s office, looking forward to the people I am able to help and the understanding of our state and federal government I’ve been able to so rapidly learn.
While in college, I had a professor once tell me that political science was the most valuable degree, as it is the one field of study everybody in this country should have knowledge of (although, it seems like very few actually do). His words inspired me to add a degree in political science, learning about presidential elections from Dr. Hal Bass and constitutional law from Dr. Doug Reed. When I graduated, I felt prepared to make opinions and decisions based on the education I’d received in the school of social sciences. However, it has just blown me away how little I actually knew, now that I sit quite literally in the middle of state government. I feel as though I’ve received an entire additional political science degree through working here -- but isn’t that the reality of life after college?
Of course, this job comes with an expiration date. And while I’m glad it isn’t one I’ve set for myself this time around, it still makes my stomach ache. I know God meant for me to take this job. But what happens when it’s over?
If I tell myself this story in the context of “What am I learning here?”, I know that each experience is showing me things I value and things I want to run from. Much like the idea of ex-boyfriends teaching you how you should or shouldn’t have been treated, jobs have done the same for me. I no longer want to work in publishing, because I feel it takes away my love for writing, the one passion I’ve ever felt -- however, I still feel like writing is where I need to be in some capacity. If I am going to work for a florist, it will be Mary & Martha’s (I think I knew that before the whole fiasco though.) I never want to work in marketing or advertising in that capacity -- however, I realized how valuable working for yourself could be and how important a healthy work environment is. And I don’t know if a state agency job will ever have my name on it.
Check, check, check.
The problem with this system is that I’m marking off boxes with no idea which ones will appear next. After we walk out of the building with the Governor on his last day, where will I go? I have told my mom a multitude of times that I will retire then and there, because I’m afraid this working thing doesn’t quite work for me. Unfortunately, I think I need at least five years under my belt for my retirement to even start collecting? Who knows.
It’s an interesting, very accurate to my twenty-something age season to be in. A year out of college, where I spent my every waking moment preparing for a life of meaningful work, I am at a loss for words as to what my purpose is. Why wasn’t there a class for that? A class to prepare hard workers at Ouachita for the real world, to tell them it’s not what you expected. Dream jobs aren’t always attainable, and they aren’t always your realistic dream in the first place. Maybe I set myself up for failure. Maybe I shouldn’t have worked so hard at leadership roles in college, because maybe that gave me a false reality of the purposeful work I would one day find in corporate America. Maybe it made me view professional success incorrectly, because as I’m writing this, all I dream of is going home, writing in the morning, and visiting my mom in the afternoon. Is that wrong, after all the work I’ve put in the last now five years? I just never thought I’d be a college graduate, still asking myself what I want to be when I grow up.
I think a lot about my freshman orientation class at OBU. We read a book entitled “Why College Matters to God,” and now, I see those pieces of wisdom apply to why work matters to God. It told a story of a prison guard who learned of one of the prisoner’s favorite things: Mozart. The guard figured out this prisoner’s schedule, and whenever he was out in the commons, he would play Mozart over the loudspeaker for him to hear, hoping this small act would at least make the prisoner’s afternoon happy. This whole idea was supposed to give students the understanding that every major matters; you don’t have to study Christian ministry in order to share it.
Today, that story is the closest thing to peace I can get to when I consider what to do with my life. I can play Mozart over the loudspeaker in every job I’ve had and ever will have. In every miniscule conversation or calendar invite, in every good morning, how are you, in every helpful hand. And eventually (dooooooown down down the road), in every changed diaper and car rider line.
But in the meantime, here’s to writing more in the little minutes throughout the day, in the morning with my breakfast, and at night before sleep. The Governor asked me a few weeks ago if I missed writing, and as I left that conversation, I was so sad to think about how I’ve spent so much time worrying about finding purpose in a job, I’ve abandoned the one thing that makes me feel content and valuable. Maybe one day, the scraps of stories I’ve scribbled will connect into a novel and I can live off of my New York Bestseller List royalties with Price and our babies.
A girl sure can keep dreaming, far after college.
Xo. A
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