Directionless floating

Molly Morrison was one of those notorious Class of 2013 kids. I was lucky enough to have her in class for two years, during which time she wrote a wide assortment of chatty and charming pieces about every topic under the sun (including an epic essay that compared Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian with the film Platoon). "My English classes at Parker transformed my resistance of classroom reading into a restless curiosity about the world these writers seemed to grapple with," she said. Molly went on to Loyola University Chicago and graduated in May 2017 with a degree in Business Management and Journalism. She currently lives in Chicago and works for an international recruiting agency that focuses on staffing STEM industries. If you read Molly’s post and want to talk about Chicago, college, or life, you should reach out to her. She’s cool.

In this post, Molly writes about "the general sense of directionless floating a lot of high school grads and college grads experience in their transition out of a system (education) that has nurtured them for so long."  

- C.H.






I’ll never forget the bedroom in my apartment on Lakewood. Third floor unit hidden in Rogers Park trees with an East facing window that overlooked a maze of garages, cable lines, and the alleys that bleed along the red line. 

I would frequently drag the Director’s Chair from my desk over to my window, sometimes in the middle of the night, and watch unnoticed. I felt gripped by this restlessness -- it had infected the most intimate corners I inhabited, most notably my journal pages and my sleep pattern. Every moment alone became a fixation on my future -- what would it be like? Where was I going to live next? Where would I work? How will I pay my loans? What am I going to do with my life? These rabbit holes were tough not to trip over, and it was tricky not associating all of this doubt & uncertainty with specific people. Was I really happy in my relationship? Are my friends holding me back? Am I holding them back? Why are my parents putting so much pressure on me? Don’t be ungrateful, they put you through college. Is it messed up that I moved so far away? Should I go home after graduation? 


All of these complex questions morphed into their own micro-anecdotes that ultimately echoed the same fear -- what if I choose the wrong thing? As my graduation date grew closer, I found myself more often than not sitting in the window frame, hidden by the shadows of my blinds and worrying. I viewed the future with this implicit sense of permanence, like my life was somehow starting and ending once I had my diploma in hand. I felt torn between my pure passion for art & music and my intrinsic understanding of what it costs to live in Chicago. My biggest dream is to be an independent artist, but should I rely on that to survive? What if that makes me hate it? I was getting a degree in Business Management and Journalism and I knew it was more practical to find a job somewhere downtown that would pay the bills and get my parents off my back about what I was going to do next.

I was floating and that scared the shit out of me. Because floating is directionless, and my time was running out. Eventually I did choose. I chose the 9 - 5, health insurance, cookie cutter option. I decided I wasn’t ready to try as an artist yet -- I wasn’t ready to fail. There was no major a-ha moment that brought me peace with this decision. It was the collection of hours that I spent looking out that window that forced me to simplify my fear. I wanted to stay in Chicago, to experience the city without the identity of a student. The easiest way for me to afford that was finding a job with a dependable salary. I felt too unsure about what I wanted to do professionally that I was content to bite the corporate bullet so that I could buy myself another year in the city I loved. 

Reflecting on this huge life transition, my biggest advice to those going through it is to embrace the mantra that everything is temporary. I was so scared of choosing a school or a job that wouldn’t make me happy and therefore it would be a waste of time or money -- and not just mine, but my parents’, my grandparents’, etc. I put a lot of pressure on myself because I saw my changing world with an unfounded sense of permanence that simply doesn’t exist. 

You will choose the wrong thing. Fuck it, it’s not even “wrong” -- it’s just about learning what you like & don’t like, what you want & don’t want. The only way you’ll ever do that is by giving yourself options to experience -- take a weird variety of classes, go to the college org. fairs and meet as many people as you can. Look for people, music, places, teams, literature, and events that you have never experienced before. College is the ultimate experiment, and one of the safest places for you to “choose the wrong thing”. 

Schools like Parker mold you to think strategically about your future. A lot of time is spent talking about what kind of school you should go to, fitting yourself into an application to their standards, choosing a major, finding a roommate, all while juggling your life as a high school kid. Almost no time is spent talking about the nights we spend looking out the window of that Lakeview apartment. About how isolating and scary it can feel to know that almost everything about your life is going to change. Even with our friends, we try and focus on what we’re excited about, we play it cool and occasionally dip our toe in the water to talk about what we’ll miss or what we’re scared of. 

I urge you to explore the rooftops outside your windows instead of silently observing them. Push yourself to be uncomfortable in every step of the process -- the list of schools you apply to, the cities you wander when you go to visit them, the people around you going through the exact same thing. And WRITE, for the love of god please write. It’s so important in de-jumbling our brains, and being able to reflect on what you’ve gone through and the growth you’ve experienced. 

Embrace. Experience. Write. 

Go!



Molly can be reached at molly.morrison2013@gmail.com