Life after graduation

I'm in a difficult place at the moment - namely, Salford.

I graduated two weeks ago and ever since then I've been floating around in this miserable sort of limbo. Nobody wants to give me a job. I've been to two interviews - one of them turned out to be a scam (I'll write more about that in a separate post) and one of them I didn't really want but I would have taken it if they offered it to me. They said they'd ring me back yesterday and they haven't, so I guess it's a no.

The thing is, I don't terribly want a full-time job here. A full-time job here means I'd only be able to go home and see my family, my friends and my little dog for a few weeks out of the year, and I'd spend the rest of the year miserable. I love my friends here, but they're not enough. My friends at home are enough. I wish there was some way I could divide my time equally between here and there, but there isn't. I love this city, and the thought of leaving it permanently makes me sad. The thought of never doing some of the things I've wanted to do here makes me sad, like getting the train to Liverpool or Blackpool and being there in an hour, or visiting all the shops and clubs and museums I want to go to. If I could move all of my family and friends up here, I'd do it in a second, but I can't. And yes, I can go home on weekends if I'm working full-time, but that'd be getting the train at 6pm on Friday, not being home until 9pm, and then having to leave again on Sunday. I'd only be there for one day, what's the point of that? I want to spend my weekends relaxing, not travelling.

But the thought of being here, scared, lonely, isolated, disconnected and penniless like I am at the moment makes me a lot more miserable. I'm not happy here anymore. Here is not right for me anymore, that much is clear. Every time I think about being stuck here forever, I cry.

I just wish somebody would listen to me. I don't talk to anyone about it, because every time I do, they look at me like I'm an idiot and I've just suggested we try constructing a lift to Jupiter made out of lollysticks and matchboxes. If they don't do that, they still don't really listen to me. I can see their minds working, thinking of how me staying here would benefit them in some way, then they start trying to convince me I should stay here, because of A, B and C. I have already thought of A, B and C. I have already thought about everybody else. I'm frustrated because I have to choose between doing what will make me happy - which will somehow apparently make everyone else miserable, even though it has no effect on most of them at all, or doing what'll make everyone else happy and staying here being miserable. If I do what makes me happy, people will say I'm selfish. If I do what makes them happy, then I'll be miserable, but I'll still have to pretend to be happy because people don't like other people being miserable. Apparently being unhappy makes you selfish as well. It's a no win situation.

And leaving is going to be a hassle. I'll have to get rid of this flat. I didn't want to live in this damn flat this year, anyway, but everybody expected me to stay here and get somewhere to live here. I think with a lot of my friends, it was automatically assumed that they'd go home when they finished uni. With me, I was apparently expected to stay here - going home was never presented as an option to me, so I signed the contract on this place for another year because my mother wouldn't shut up about hurrying up and doing it otherwise I'd end up with nowhere to live. I wouldn't have cared if I'd ended up with nowhere to live, because I don't want to have somewhere to live here.

This is not home, this is not where I belong and this is not where I am happy. I just sit in this dingy little flat with the curtains closed, being miserable, applying for jobs I don't want to pay the rent on the flat I don't want, because I can't get rid of the flat I don't want, so instead I need to stay here and get a full-time job that I don't want, not because I don't want to work, but because I don't want to be stuck here.