The Freshman

So i got a new job.

I know. I know. This is big news that i should have immediately documented. I mean I have written about my many failures in the job hunt. From horrible interviews to rejection letters from jobs denying me employment that i don't remember applying to. And this time around I finally land something and I want to keep it a secret until the night before my first official day. Weird I know.

To be honest, this job came out of nowhere. A while back i applied to a part time position with a college in my area. I remember doing so because i was getting shit hours at Le Sad store and was broke and miserable. By the start of summer my hours picked up. I was making enough money and enjoying the slacker life not to worry about finding new employment; at least for the summer.

I understand that eventually I am suppose to get a real persons job and have a a real persons routine and bring packed lunches with me to my office gig where I am locked in for a 40 hour work week. I know this. But at 26, I am sort of enjoying my less than perfect life. I have awesome smart but lazy friends, an adorable crush (w/a girlfriend unfortunately) who i hug and touch and inappropriately say things to all the time. I get to sleep in til' noon, if i like, and watch trashy daytime TV. I bake cupcakes, and read books and head to the city  on the weekends. And while I am incredibly broke, dehydrated and anxious, i am enjoying my stupid little life these days.

So, I've put the real person job (and life thing) on hold for a while. I've decided to just take a break, right where I'm at, to enjoy what I've  got and figure things out. But that still doesn't mean i don't need a livable income. So when I got a nice email a few weeks ago from said university to set up an interview, I decided to go in. The hours at the store aren't a guarantee. People are always leaving, schedules are always fucked up, and I'm still petrified on falling behind. Sure I've taken a break on big important real people things, but it doesn't mean I'm not aware of them.

The interview was short and awesome. At the end of it, i knew that I'd gotten the job. 20 hours a week. $12/hour with benefits and tuition assistance. How could i turn this down. Last week the position was finalized and tomorrow is my first day. And i am jitter-less.excited. ready to start this shit. When i was in college i absolutely hated it. I was awkward and nervous and scared of people getting to know me. I am still all of those things but to a lesser degree. There is something to be said about not worrying, all the time, what strangers are thinking about you. It's a little empowering.

I walked to the campus today(practice run), which is 5 minutes from the bookstore (where i remain a part time bookseller) and got excited just to be on one again. There is a library and a garden and benches just mere steps from the building I'll be in. There were some students, looking down at papers and trying to figure out where they were going. I made eye contact and smiled and felt oddly comfortable. Tomorrow is the first day of something and it excites the hell out of me.

Of course, Kat was the first person I told about the new job, who immediately asked me what I was going to tell Sean. My relationship with him continues to evolve and get complicated. I adore him. I love being around him. I like liking a boy who, while restricted, likes being around me too. And it ain't easy because it feels like if we'd only met each other sooner, first, then we could explore a relationship. Because we can't, our interactions often leave me exhausted and depleted because i can't have what i want.

I'm often confused by his feelings for me. I like that we flirt. That he'll go out of his way to hang out with me. That he buys me hamburgers and steals fruit for me from the cafe so i can eat. But these things don't tell me anything out what he feels for me, except that he likes to feed me. So i often look to our interactions so i can interrupt what he aint saying. I'm terrible. Last week, i played a little job on him to gauge his reaction. I told one of our coworkers to tell Sean that they'd seen my crying (it's a long story, he deserved it). When he found me, i was talking to someone laughing, so he knew that I'd made the lie up (once again he deserved it!). He was more relieved than mad, and drove me home despite my mean jab while we sang to dumb music. Before i went to bed that night, i checked my voice mails and one happened to be from him which he made before the lie was revealed to be one. He sounds so fucking concerned and worried and anxious and sweet. I have listened to it, a million times just because i like hearing this side of him all exposed.

Regardless of what i feel for this boy Sean happens to a) have a gf! and b) is naturally a flirty guy. He likes attention from women. He needs constant affirmation. And he will literally get it from whoever is around him. Often times I'm not sure if he actually feels anything for me if I'm another girl on the list of chicks who gives him the attention he ain't getting elsewhere. The only thing i have going is that he's cried in front of me. I keep that in my treasure of memories because it's the closest I've ever felt to him. I can still feel his body shake under the frailty of my hug. I held on so tight, so i both thought we'd fall apart if i didn't.

The point is, this boy confuses the shit of me cause our relationship has obviously crossed some emotional/physical boundary. It just has. But he still remains something that isn't mine. And he's made no attempts to be a single fellow. So sometimes i get sick of the flirting and the teasing and the touching when i know I'm not going to get anything else out of it. Sometimes, i want him to think that he is going to lose me if he doesn't make a move or admit something big to me. Soooooo, I may have let him think that i was leaving the store permanently to get a reaction. I may not have let on, at first, that the job is actually part time and that i would still be around with my regular ass hours despite my new gig. And Kat helped with this little fib. She told Sean (before my shift started) that she was upset because I'd gotten a new job and she didn't know what she would do without me at the store (her performance was brilliant). Sean, oh Sean, replied:

"understandable. She (me!) can't be replaced. There is no one like her. no one".

I felt like Bridget Jones man. When Mark Darcy tells her she likes her just as she is. Damn stupid boys and there damn stupid words. I waited a few days to tell him the 'truth'. He pulled me in real close and said 'don't leave me. please don't leave me' please' in a joking way. I patted his back and told him that I'd still be around, he couldn't get rid of me yet.

Of course, because our relationship feels like game, he tells me this weekend that he wants to move to Baltimore. His mom knows a friend in the fire department who may be able to get him into the academy there (oh, yeah, he wants to be a firefighter!). We were sitting in the back, goofing off when he told me he was 'going to go'. I asked him where, thinking he meant he had to get back on the book floor, but he clarified and said 'no, i think I'm going to leave'. That's when he told me about Baltimore and the academy. I freaked out and asked why he would want to leave New York, he said cause there was nothing to stay for. I tell him that i don't want him to go, to which he asks why it would matter if he left or not. I shrug and said i don't know, but that i generally like being around him and  that him leaving would be painful. He seemed content with that answer and then told me on the way home that he might not go after all, he's just throwing ideas out there.

This is my life with this boy. He is part of the reason why i needed a change of scenery. I need a fucking distraction. it'll be nice to get paid for this distraction.

Anyway,

I'm excited as hell to have something new in my life. Le Sad Store is consuming me. I work there, my friends are there, my crush is there and my social life has sprouted from there, so having a place that is mine will be a much needed break. Plus two paychecks will bring me back to a nice cushy place financially.

More importantly, I feel like this is an opportunity to branch out a little. College was so fucking hard for me. By the time i began to figure it out a little, it was over and i already missed so much. This job is in no way a do over. I don't think the game has ended and I've been given the option to restart. But it does, in some way feel like, the small change i need so when i am ready I'll be able to manage the bigger ones.