I graduated in the Spring from my degree in Women's Studies. My partner and I were living together in Philadelphia. He had graduated two years before me and we were preparing to move to NYC so that he could earn is Master's degree at Teacher's College, Columbia University. Summer began, as it has for the past 18 years of my student life, but it ended in a very different way. While the rest of the world was preparing for a new school year, I wasn't. And thus began my Academic Limbo.
Once I started to live here in NYC, surrounded by students, professors, grad students, there was this really vital moment when (perhaps it was amplified after 5 years of undergrad) where I realized that I wasn't a student anymore. I mean, I knew it. But I really felt it for the first time, and it was fucking painful. A few months after I refused to walk for graduation (I'm not much for ceremonies), it was the end of the summer and everyone I knew was starting school again - grad students, teachers, kindergartners - and I was left in the apartment across the street from my partner's school watching 1 year olds all day. I felt this intense resentment and jealousy toward all of them - even the kindergartner. Fuck them for being able to buy erasers and pencils, clean notebooks and color coordinated folders and putting them all together to attend the first class of the year. That was my habit, and it had been broken by circumstance. Now I'm (just?) a nanny.
Once I started to live here in NYC, surrounded by students, professors, grad students, there was this really vital moment when (perhaps it was amplified after 5 years of undergrad) where I realized that I wasn't a student anymore. I mean, I knew it. But I really felt it for the first time, and it was fucking painful. A few months after I refused to walk for graduation (I'm not much for ceremonies), it was the end of the summer and everyone I knew was starting school again - grad students, teachers, kindergartners - and I was left in the apartment across the street from my partner's school watching 1 year olds all day. I felt this intense resentment and jealousy toward all of them - even the kindergartner. Fuck them for being able to buy erasers and pencils, clean notebooks and color coordinated folders and putting them all together to attend the first class of the year. That was my habit, and it had been broken by circumstance. Now I'm (just?) a nanny.
Nobody told me leaving college meant resurrecting a piece of my identity (studenthood). And so begins the emptiness and pursuit of filling that void. Confusing -considering, the week before finals, I thought I'd never consider falling into the academic abyss again. Now I'm not so sure.
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