The Gypsy Years

Photo Courtesy NYPL Flickr Stream

I've taken a Costume Internship at the Chataqua Institution that goes from June 10 - August 20. This is a good thing- Chataqua is a well-respected BEAUTIFUL place full of intelligent, successful people who want to tell me about it. It's like Artist/Intelligencia Summer Camp. I'm super excited to swim in the lake and ask 1,000 questions and listen to Morning Lecture when I'm not working my tail off inside the shop and learning every damn thing I can, by hook or by crook.

I will miss being in New York- part of me feels like I just moved here and can't stand to miss a thing. I'll miss having my own apartment and going grocery shopping whenever I want to. I'll miss my friends that are down here, and I'll miss being able to visit my parents. I won't miss the stink of garbage on the street in August or the hell of Weekend Service Changes. I will still worry about EVERYTHING, but I am less than one year out of school. Unless you graduated before the implosion & signed a contract right out of college (you bastard), unemployment is not news, it's normal youth. I almost wish I had done a year of job-hunting and worrying right after High School, but 18-year-old-Beth absolutely lacked the emotional maturity to handle something like that. 18-year-old-Beth could barely figure out how to feed herself, and she lived 500 feet from the Dining Hall.

Besides, Chataqua has a lot of things that drew me to New York. I'll be able to walk or ride my bike everywhere and there's a ton of entertainment cheaply available.

Actually, I've kind of missed the rigor and scheduling of School, and I need to eat my pride about getting paid for my work & realize that I still have a ton of shit to learn. After these few months I'll KNOW whether or not Wardrobe is something I like.  Mostly, the part that listened to my trusted advisor squeal "you can't afford to not do this!" knows that it will be good for me, and is excited.

The next part is all finding a sub-letter and working my little tail off at my as-yet imaginary job so they don't evict Rommate while I'm gone and put all my furniture out on the street and I lose all my friends and go bankrupt and have to move back in with my parents. Because in my mind, it is possible to be a complete failure at 22 and not, like, a normal direction-less human being.