Coming of Age

We've all seen the high school coming of age story. We've even seen some good early twenties movies. What I haven't seen is the hits of the mid twenties, when you still feel like a kid but the burdens of being an American citizen hit almost all at once. Student loans isn't a problem to worry about later, it's happening now. 

For the past two years I've been very consistent. My college years are behind me, and when I was in college every year I'd have to move into a new house, get new roommates, or something was happening in my life to break up the monotonicity. Now that I'm post-grad, I have kept the same job going on two years, I've had the same boyfriend for pretty much that entire time, and yes things have happened in my life and I do things, but ultimately each day is the same day with some subtle font differences. In one aspect, I'm glad my life is very stable and I have a consistent source of income from a job I do not despise. Ultimately, I'm a bit disappointed in myself to think that this is what all of my life has been culminating to. All the people in my younger years that came and went or continued to stay, all the memories I've made, tests I've taken, classes I've ditched resulted with me laying with my cats writing a blog after working 8 1/2 hours this morning. 

As the wise words of one Sidney Gish once sang, "'97 speaks and now I'm there: fuzzy socks, and shampooed hair, cyst acne bare, I'm eating healthy, watching Ina cook for Jeffrey. Kinda pissed if this is the real me." 

Sidney's lyrics have been hitting home for me for years, but this one really does it for me, and this came out when she was 22. I'm 24. I'm ancient in terms of teen angst. Like really? This is it for me? 

I know what some of you guys are going to say, obviously this isn't it for me. I'm still very young, I have my whole life ahead of me, but this is when the crippling way of life for an American citizen comes in. 

I want to get out of my current situation. I currently live in a house with 3 roommates in the city, I subway to work every day, I work 5 days a week and see my friends on the weekends, and I can live comfortably, but I'm not saving up any money. I'm not living paycheck to paycheck, but if my car breaks down one more time I'm going to be fucked. I'm not saying I'm not happy in my life right now, because I very much am. I'm extremely comfortable. I have a somewhat good work/life balance and enough funds to do the things I want to do. However, I want to buy a house one day. I want to be able to move out of the city and still live comfortably. This idea is completely unattainable for me in my current situation. If I consolidate some financial burnens like buying lunch, hopping the subway instead of paying, and use servers to watch movies instead of pay for subscriptions, I can possibly save around $500 every month. If I do everything perfectly (and we don't live in a perfect world), I can save $6000 a year, meaning in 5 years I will have 30,000 in savings, enough to put a decent down payment on a probably shitty house. Right now I'm comfortable and happy, yes, but I'm not thinking about the future at all and what I want it to look like for myself. 

So it seems there's a couple things I could do to make my situation better and make and save more money to eventually have the life I want: 

1) Aim for a promotion (which I'm a shoe-in for, it's just a matter of when the dominoes fall into place) 

2) Job hop to increase my income (seems like moving around at jobs could get me a 15% pay raise each time I hop) 

3) Become extremely successful with a side hustle (taking suggestions below) 

And honestly, I can't really think of anything else. I feel like I'm stuck, and I know I'm not. I do like my job and I have a lot of freedoms and great co-workers. If I leave, who knows what the situation is going to be, who are going to be my social peers, and will I have a team as great as the one I have now. 

I took a break from writing this blog to job search and applied to a bunch of jobs with other companies, some that make a lot more money than I do. Shot in the dark, but it's possible. If I want to change, I can change but my life is just so comfortable right now. The problem is living in this comfortability isn't working towards anything, and my situation will not change until I decide to do something about it. 

Even if I make more money, I'm still going to be upset about the whole system that we live in. I love my mom and I respect her for her decisions, but she never fully informed me (or herself) about student debt and how everything works. Interest accrues daily. By the end of the month, I have more than $60 added to my loan just in interest. I've decided to pay weekly instead to try to lower my debt faster. While I was discussing this with my stepmom, however, she mentioned that mortgage is essentially the same thing but worse. She gave me this example: Let's say she's paying 1,200 a month for mortgage, only about 200 of that 1,200 is actually going to the house, the rest is in interest and lining the pockets of the bank. 

My complaints are moot especially because every single person older than me has said "that's just how it works". That sounds terrible to me. It's so stupid, I know, but growing up I never actually thought about the way it works. It was all hypothetical, it didn't affect me directly, I knew the system was fucked up but it all just hit me so hard and at once. I told my mom that she should have explained this to me when I turned 18, but she said that she wanted me to enjoy life and be a kid and live without the stress of the world. I understand, and I had my own stress at the time anyways but damn! 

Why isn't there a movie about the coming of age of a 24 year old? A film about a girl who goes to work every day, comes home to pet her cats and blog, learns about personal debt, and interacts with the world with the eyes of someone who wants, but understands the hardships it will take to get there. I'm not a very extraordinary person, and I don't think social media is my thing. I'm a relatively good drawer, I am a weaver (fiber arts) and I make a mean collage but I hate selling my stuff because I feel like it's selling myself. How can I sell myself if I don't even know who the fuck I am? I don't thrive on social media, and I cannot see myself making tremendous amounts of money from it. 

My coworkers keep saying that no one will ever actually make money at a job. It's the side hustles that make the money, or going viral. I know where they are coming from, and they are a lot older but I don't think any of us understand the amount of work it takes to be on social media and have income coming from content creation. My friends are into social media management and are constantly adapting to algorithms, trends, and put in the work. I'd rather spend that time making my art, not promoting it. I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly and it's not cute anymore because I'm not 19. 

It would be cool to write a blog or something and post it all around the city or in a magazine anonymously and become this big viral phenomenon (Gossip Girl), but that's not the world we're living in anymore. Everyone is special, everyone has a platform. When everyone has a platform and something to say, how do you even have the time to sit and read this blog post? 

That's all I have to say for now. I'll test my theory now, I've been posting some pretty solid blogs that I would love interaction with, but I think my blogs are too long, too personal, too winded for people to actually engage with them. Fuck a short form content. 

Til next time, 

xoxo 

GG