Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Back Home Blues

      

I just snapped.

There was no real explanation for it and I couldn't control the words coming out of my mouth.  My mother had uttered the words "time is passing and years are going..." and I didn't even hear the rest. 

 The mountain of pressure I was experiencing after living at home for nearly two years and not much to show for it had finally exploded.

That's when I realized that I have an acute case of what I call the "Back Home Blues." This is the stage in which us 20 something year olds move back home after college because we are in developmental limbo.  We are mentally capable of living on our own, but financially we are slaves to reverse growth.  Many of us have four year degrees that hold no weight in this fragile economy. We have to straddle the delicate line of being our parents kid's and growing into our own adult skin.  Some people have a smooth transition from college to returning home to finally achieving independence.  Others are not so lucky.

I consider myself one of the unlucky ones.  Since moving back home, I've been able to pick up a few part time jobs, most working in my desired field of study.  I was content with my path going forward and was starting to save enough to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel....until big roadblocks began to block my path.  First, I was laid off from my job.  Add that to the sting of not being able to pay my college loans off (including mounting interests rates) and optimism goes out of the window.  Then, I took my GREs' and did less than stellar on the exam, pushing my grad school aspirations back another year.  I am now stuck looking for more work and praying to the gods that I do well enough of my next exam.  The harder things get, the harder it is to stay positive.

I needed some source, ANY source of positivity to keep me going.  So I went to the modern day doctor, Google.com, in search for answers.  After reading up on this topic, it seems my biggest issue was not setting ground rules from the get-go.  I should've let my mom know some of the things that were off limits as well as contributing something concrete to the house.  The more ambiguous things are, the harder they are to deal with.

This is a good starting point but I still feel stuck! arghh....Hopefully I'll be able to eventually navigate the murky waters of the "back home blues" long enough to keep my sanity!

No comments:

Post a Comment