Post-Collegiate Depression - Part 1

It all started in the Winter Term of my final year of college. Because before that term I had things all figured out. I had a plan for what was going to happen to me after college. It was easy. I would graduate at the end of term, go on my spring break trip to Mexico, and then come back to a promotion at my summer job. I would work full-time (plus some) and pay off the debt that I had accrued at college.

This plan was quickly derailed in the course of one week. Plus something happened to me during the term, I'm not exactly sure when it was, although I can remember the moment. I was at Stever and Marjorie's place hanging out. I walked into the kitchen to throw a piece of trash away and it hit me. I thought of myself as a writer. That was what I wanted to do with myself. Now my summer job was waiting tables. I was set-up to be a supervisor upon graduation. Then I went to work on Valentine's day.

(A quick aside. There may have also been a girl that I really like that I went on a date with the Thursday before Valentine's Day that may have affected my wishes to move back to Central Oregon. There was only one date, but I didn't know that that was what was happening until later. And good luck getting that story out of me. Turns out I'm something of a moron.)

I went back to work at Kah-Nee-Ta for a weekend. The whole time on the way back I was complaining about how I didn't really even want to work. How I couldn't believe that I'd ever agreed to such a purely preposterous proposition (alliteration is funny). So I worked the whole weekend, I got like 24 in two days or some such nonsense. I was not enjoying myself at all while it was happening.

(Another quick aside. I loved my job at Kah-Nee-Ta. I mean I loved it so much. I was good at it, heck, I was great at it. But then, well, that's what I'm explaining isn't it.)

So towards the end of it all, it's like noon on Sunday and right after work Dennis and I were headed back over the mountain to school, I start talking about the upcoming spring break trip. You see my friends and I scheduled a spring break trip to Mexico every year and never went. So I was trying to get everyone to go this year because it was my final spring break. Some of the guys, the guys who worked at the resort all year long, said they couldn't go because the boss had them working that whole week. Later she overheard me talking to other people and she let me know that I too would be working the whole week of spring break. I let her know that I would not be doing that. Then Dennis and I returned to school.

It was at that moment when my boss, who I'd had a crush on since I'd started working there three years earlier, put my spring break at jeopardy that I decided that I would never work for her again. (I did work for her again, for one more day, to help pay for my spring break trip.) So I went back to school intent on not having my future be out at the resort. I went to the career fair, the only booth that interested me was the Peace Corps booth, and began to apply for jobs in the Corvallis area. I also spoke with my advisors about staying for one extra term (really it was just not graduating early, but now I feel like I'm bragging).

The Peace Corps thing went well until they found out I didn't have any community service hours at during my collegiate experience. It was hard to fit that in with my constant drinking and smoking, plus the homework and the working on odd weekends. Plus road trips and nights of poker. Video games and movies. I mean I could have done some, I guess, but I didn't. So it was decided that I wasn't going to the Peace Corp. (I'd be about one year in right now if I'd gone.)

Shortly after the career fair I called my boss, Marie Kay, and let her know that I would not be starting full time at the end of the term, instead I was going to stay at school for one more term and enjoy the end of my college experience. I had no plans for what I would be doing after college, when all through college I knew exactly where I was going. It was at this point that I began drifting. I just didn't know it yet.

To be continued...