The Notes series: 10:27pm

My advice to college grads (now that I have a job and know everything)

Due to my lack of storage on my phone (and my resistance to paying for an upgrade to expand said storage), I’ll be copy/pasting my most profound and most mundane notes app thoughts here, on the blog, for safe keeping. Maybe I’ll add onto those old notes, if I have anything more to say.

[written on march 27, 2022 — 10:27pm]

My advice to college grads? Take it slow. Do your best at whatever you want to pursue but just don’t try to go full speed ahead, because you could very well end up driving right into a brick wall.

You know, colleges really need to implement some kind of system or make seniors go to a class that talks about what it really could be like after school. I didn’t need advice on my resume or my LinkedIn presence when I graduated — I needed psychological help. But I didn’t know that. And of course, I had to learn that real life isn’t as linear as school is…at all. And to my surprise, that really messed with my head.

Unless you’re one of the lucky ones, there is no safety net out there.

Colleges push you right out the front door, and it turns out that door is on the edge of a cliff! And now you’re free-falling! At first, you’re like, “Oh, this could be fun! I might start flying!” But if you don’t fly immediately, say…by September post-grad (which would usually be the start of a new semester, all neatly laid out for you), then you’re just falling and falling and falling. And then you start to panic, naturally. Nothing good comes from panicking.

Now, I have nothing to lose. But that means I have everything to gain. I have no clue where my life is going to end up. I’ve tried to plan it out in my head, to do all the right steps and create the best habits to raise my chances of getting a Big Girl Job. But all it got me was a year-long episode of anxiety (and depression if I really think about it). So, now I’m through. I’m completely open! Who knows what will fall into my lap? It could be even better than I imagined in the first place!

For now, I’m going to focus on earning some honest money as a hostess, and on working on my writing. I don’t have much else to do, now do I?

After nearly two years of unemployment and three weeks of being a fantastic hostess at The Cheesecake Factory, Autumn got her first Big Girl Job. She still works there today. She has health insurance.