The Dog Days Are Over?

You know what I hate about vacation. I hate the few days after you come home, when suddenly you are bombarded with the things you left behind and must find a way to readjust to your real life again.



I left New York knowing that August was going to be hectic. I have things to apply to, social activities I cannot bail on, and a job to secure before I am beyond broke. Being on vacation, you forget all the aches and pains of your 'real life' in favor of relaxation and blissful ignorance. While I was home, i played Rock Band with my brother, went thrift store shopping with my mom, and pranced around in a ridiculous wig because it was fun.



I was relaxed the whole time, I slept more than I should have followed by consuming more food than I should have. And the closer my vacation got to being over, the more tense I felt because I knew the moment I landed in New York the real world would smack me in the face. That I would have to arm myself with body armour and forge ahead.



Yep. That pretty much sums it up.



I arrived in New York Sunday afternoon. After having my cab stolen by a lady with a pocket sized dog, getting caught up in a torrential rain storm and having another near face plant at Grand Central I made it home...and slept all day. I got texts throughout the night from co-workers/friends reminding me of lunch dates, movie screenings, and a potential skydiving trips I've promised to attend in the upcoming weeks (don't ask about the skydiving one). These events are all coming up quickly and I am sort of nervous, because I am trying to be as social as possible without wearing my introverted self out.





I am still perplexed as to why people want to hang out with me and must find ways to overcome this insecurity. This Sunday, I am invited to rooftop luncheon (which hopefully won't be as painful as the last one) with friends from work. Jenn, the girl who spent the night in my room, quit the store a few months back because of new manager and a teaching gig she got via her professor. Despite a few rough patches in our friendship I like her a lot. We get along really well and have a similar sense of humor (deadpan, dry). She moved to the city this summer and invited me and another girl over to her place for a rooftop picnic/ museum hopping day.



It was intended to be a "Nerd Day 2010 Extravaganza": food, wine, and sight seeing. No boys allowed. Of course that quickly changed, and our party of three rounded out to a party of five once Evan and Matt asked to come along. Either way I'm kind of excited about Sunday. The last time I was on a roof eating food, I was getting the stank eye from a very territorial editorial assistant. Let's hope I fare better this time around.



Marie is slightly 'jealous' of my so called social life of late. Being a good friend however, she does listen to me when I talk about my tentative plans with people. At the end of every conversation though she says ' i wish i had someone to do all those things with'. I wonder if I am doing the same thing to her that she did to me in college. A time when she called every two months to talk about her boyfriend, friends, and general awesomeness. Okay, I take that back, I am definitely not doing that to her. We talk everyday and I am not that vain but every time she mentions how she would kill to have something to do every weekend, I want to reply 'but you have a job. i don't. want to trade places'.



I am still very concerned about the job market and my lack of one. I hate that I would rather have a well paying, non hourly wage job than a friend to go to the movies with. In my hearts of hearts I want to balance both a social life with a career, but to say one is more important than the other at this point would be an understatement. What I wouldn't do to have a freaking job to go to on regularly scheduled days preferably with weekends off. Seriously.



And, while I was home I got my freaking passport. Well, I will have it in a couple of weeks but I have my crappy passport picture to prove it. I can't wait to get my passport booklet, which will of course be very unstamped blue booklet with crisp pages unturned pages. Having it, makes this UK a serious matter. I have my mind made up and I want to do the production scheme. I want to live abroad for a while and become one of those Americans who talk about their world travel whenever they can. Just without the pomposity of course.



In order to go to the UK though I am going to need a great deal of money for travel expensive hence why I am even more stressed out about getting a well paying job so that next summer I will be on my way across the pond.



So yeah I am mile deep in get togethers, birthday parties and that random skydiving trip but I am also looking ahead and trying to make sense of this life that I want to lead and where I wane to take it. My Vacation is officially over and the stress is back. Being home in South Carolina has already begun to feel like a distant pleasant memory that existed all too long ago.