No, I'm not about to ramble on about the evils of social media. As
It's that last benefit that is keeping me sane. But it also comes at a cost.
As many of you know, I recently moved from my hometown of State College, PA to Fort Collins, Colorado. Because I am someone who suffers from very real, very irritating imposter syndrome (but let's save that for another post, shall we?), I never thought I would get the opportunity to get my Masters out here, much less be granted funding for said Masters.
To me, it was a miracle. The most exciting adventure I could ever have--I would finally leave a town, just months earlier, I had deemed suffocating at best, toxic at worst, and smelling of cheap beer and disappointment.
(I suppose the irony of moving from one college town to another had not yet settled.)
The thing about making dreams happen through a series of fortunate events is that they eventually condense into reality. It sounds like a terribly obvious statement, and shouldn't I have thought this through before moving halfway across the country?
Yes, dear Internet. I should have. What sound advice: "when you make things happen, they actually happen."
The thing is, Fort Collins is absolutely gorgeous. There are more than two streets downtown. There is yoga abound. There is a restaurant that serves noodles that make me want to bow down to the carbohydrate gods and worship their noodley appendages.
To you, the people who view my life through the lens of a computer, I am having the time of my life. As the first of my immediate friend group to make such a big move, I feel responsible for setting an example: look everyone! Moving isn't so bad! It's even exciting to flee your hometown! Look at the pretty mountains and copious amounts of food!
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| Mountains |
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| Copious amounts of food |
What they don't see are the sobbing phone calls to my best friend and mother, the crippling loneliness, the fear that even a drive to the local supermarket will be foreign and scary.
Even though I am so incredibly grateful beyond words for this opportunity, despite the fact that we already know social media can lie, can cause unfair and untrue comparisons, I wanted to assure those who are making a similar move, that just because you chose something and just because that something is exciting, does not mean you have to remain stoic and strong. We as humans are more nuanced than that.
Outside of that little blue box are the distancing friendships, the imposed stoicism ("you chose this; you were happy about it. You left us"), the strained relationships.
I am aware that I am pressing an aggressively first-world problem here. But regardless, it is real among recent graduates. I say this not to seem ungrateful or whiny--there are days when I love it here and wouldn't regret for a second pressing forward. I simply post this to expose the days when it is hard. When it is terribly, horribly lonely. When I feel like I've made some sort of mistake for not remaining close to my friends and family. I post this because there is more than one side to the moving story.
