sad ant with bindle

Waiting. A lot of it. Waiting, waiting, waiting. The time passes oh so painfully slow when you’re waiting. Checking. So much checking. Refresh, refresh, refresh. Are you sure you’re not mad at me? I really hope you’re not mad at me. 

Having your dream job is the best until one day you wake up and your dream job can’t hire you full time. Or at all, for that matter. But it’s okay because you’re 22 and have lots of experience and all these wonderful connections and a whole life ahead of you, right? You just might have to wait a little. Okay just a little more. Just be patient for a little longer. Your time will come. Your 23rd birthday comes and goes and you nanny part-time but can’t even land a job at Starbucks despite having been a barista for 3 years. Like not even an interview. At any of the multiple Starbucks you applied to. Waiting, waiting. 

Being skinny is great when you’re 21 and 22. Skinny feels like love and feels like forever. It feels like confidence earned despite the fact that you were frankly really depressed and walking for hours a day just to feel anything at all. But then you wait. The longer you wait, the less forever really is. You turn 23 and suddenly skinny starts to slip into the past. You’re beautiful just the way you are! or Beauty is fleeting, and I’m just waiting for the answer in between. 

Making mistakes in your early twenties is normal until you mess up for real and then you are the worst person in the world. Sometimes not everyone will forgive you and that’s okay because eventually you have to figure out how to forgive yourself. Except that part doesn’t come. Or not really, anyway. You turn 23 and 24 and 25 and it still hurts. It hurts to look down on the past version of yourself and even though that probably means you’ve grown, you resent yourself for all the growing you’ve had to do. I’m so terribly sorry and I just can’t believe myself sometimes. You’re waiting, waiting, waiting for it to get better. Maybe by the time you’re 26 or 27 or 35. 

Moving home with your parents to work a minimum wage job at a record store is okay when you’re 23. This job turns into best friends and falling in love and learning so much about music that you’re passionate about, but also a lot more waiting. Waiting for a raise, waiting for a higher paying job, waiting to meet the right person with the right connections. Something good will happen soon, and when are you gonna get a real job? 23 turns to 24 and 25 and everyone is still asking you what’s next, and you have to tell them to just wait a little bit longer. 

Applying for your dream master’s program at 24 seems like a good idea until you actually get in at 25 and then have to figure out how to come up with thirty thousand dollars a year. Yup, you heard that right, THIRTY THOUSAND which feels a lot like a slap in the face when you already have student loans and still make basically minimum wage. But for now you’ll wait, desperately hoping that your financial aid package will cover tuition because you’ve been waiting to move to the Bay Area for basically your whole life. Things are starting to come together and I am so so scared. 

Being 25 is great because you still feel like you’re 17 except you have bills and body image issues and baggage and it feels like everyone is mad at you all the time. Being 25 is terrifying because you have wonderful friends and a loving relationship and a supportive family and the chance to live in your dream city. It feels like sun on your skin and walking in a thunderstorm without an umbrella and running through a field with your best friends and getting caught in a rip current in the ocean and having your mom braid your hair and and and… Being 25 feels like everything you’ve been waiting for and also so much more waiting to go. As I wait for my life to continue to unfold, I hope I can enjoy the in-between time just a little bit. But for now, I’ll keep waiting, waiting,