Being Honest With Myself: Part II

Making a change begins with the decision that it's time to move on. In this sense, I was a classic hypocrite for quite a while; I would complain till I was blue in the face, but I never attempted to change it. Since second semester freshman year I was made terribly aware that Oshkosh is a dead-end town for someone like me. I thrive in big cities with millions of people and thousands of jobs. The Fox Valley area was never going to make the cut.

Conveniently, the end of my lease was coming up, and being a temp made saying "I'm outtie!" a lot easier. Plus, my parents have been living in the suburbs just outside of my favorite city for the last four years. While I was dreading moving in with them, it was a much better situation than where I was. Bruce Brazos (John Malcovich's character in the third Transformers movie) said it best: "First job out of college is critical. You either take the step down the correct career path, or you fall into a life-sucking abyss."

Since graduation, I'd had two jobs, both of them temporary and neither having anything to do with my major. As a side-note, in the 9 months I spent in Oshkosh after graduation, I was only employed for five of them. Rather than getting stuck in Oshkosh, I decided to pack it in and start over.

Considering I'm no stranger to relocation, I started making mental lists of things to do, and I also prepared myself to tell my friends and then-boyfriend, who I call Jigsaw. I wanted to call him Cowboy (he was raised on a ranch in the boondocks of Winchester, and he came to me fully decked out in a cowboy hat and boots, and he had that irresistible Southern gentleman charm), but I found Jigsaw more fitting (punny!) because he truly completed my life at that point in time, and calling him Cowboy didn't quite have the affectionate tone I was grasping for. I was 5-months graduated, and I had finally found a long-term (albeit temporary) position. In my three-part life, (consisting of a steady income, shelter and love), I was only missing someone to share my success with. Jigsaw pulled everything into place.

However, not very long into our whirlwind romance, major deal-breaking disagreements began to surface. As I've previously stated, I had no interest in staying in Oshkosh, the college town of 67,000 inhabitants. Completely the opposite, Jigsaw had no interest in ever leaving Oshkosh. At least not for a bigger city. He pined after the life his newly-engaged sister was building with her fiancé. They had just purchased a house in the boonies where their nearest neighbor was a good ten-minute walk. It came fully equipped with a barn, a few acres of land, an above-ground pool, and the peace and quiet that only the country can offer. In addition to this, we couldn't come to an agreement about religion. I had no problem going to church on Sundays with him and his parents (I even went once without him!), but we had vastly different views on how we would raise our children. It became clear very quickly that, while Jigsaw may have been "fun for now," neither of us were willing to budge, and there can be no future without compromise.

Clearly, Chicago had big plans for me; it had made everything so easy. I had a place to live, family to take care of me, and nobody holding me back. Within three weeks of moving I had found a job, and a special someone to spend my time with. Hopefully within six months to a year I'll make enough money (and build up enough job security) to find my own place. Not that living with my parents is nearly as horrible as I thought it would be, but after 5 years of independent living, it kills me to have to pick up the phone and say, "My plans changed. I won't be home by 9, so please don't assume I'm murdered when I don't show up."