The Lemon Life | online magazine offering a fresh perspective on post-grad life.

Words by: Julie Grajales

Image by: Jessica Chan

With 2010 now upon us, I’ve never more desperately hoped for a new year to usher in a “new me”. I’m dreading my 26th birthday this month because I’m not exactly on my way to becoming the successful and self-fulfilled 26-year-old I always envisioned I’d be. Far from it, actually. If you rewind my life just two years, though, you’d think I was on the right track. You’d meet the hopeful, effervescent, and ambitious aspiring English lit academic who was at the peak of her intellectual enrichment and absolutely loving every second of the grad school experience (regardless of how harrowing it was to constantly write, read, and suffer public shamings at the hands of professors who weren’t as impressed by me as I was). In so many ways grad school was a wonderful and horrific contradiction, a rather erratic and at times downright traumatic phase of my life, but I was at my most content because of the infinite and truly grand possibilities I was certain awaited me after it was all over. Boy, was I wrong.

Here I am now, a discontent editorial drone in legal publishing, the most uncreative and soul-less type of publishing out there. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if my salary compensated for the soul-killing effects of the job – no longer the warm and fuzzy idealist I once was, it’s not beneath me to sell out if the price is right. But that’s not the case, so I’m stuck in career limbo, perpetually wondering when the heck I’ll secure that life-making position that I can happily hold until retirement. I’ve had three different (but similarly mind-numbing) jobs since exiting grad school – that’s three different jobs in just a year and a half. I don’t need anyone to tell me that this trend doesn’t quite bode well for me in terms of securing that life-making, happily-hold-until-retirement position I’m aching to find.

The sad story that is my current life, however, wasn’t written solely by the Powers That Be – I admit that I had a significant role in penning it. I am fully aware of the fact that, at least with respect to the oh-so-wrong left turn I’ve taken career-wise, I am not at the mercy of a higher power that just wants a few hearty laughs at my expense. I’ve had several options available to me along the way. I’ve just made the wrong choices. Somewhere along the line I became overly pragmatic, afraid of risks, skeptical of endeavours that didn’t translate into financial gain (when I consider the paltry salary I have right now, I am compelled to question when exactly “financial gain” and “just over broke” blurred together for me). For quite some time, I’ve been unhappy traipsing along my current career path, and yet I’ve almost completely assimilated to the status quo and lost my ability to allow what I truly want for myself – rather than what I think is practical – dictate my decisions. The transition to an adult, post-grad life can be a funny thing. Actually, it can be a terrifying thing when gone awry, like it has in my case, stripping me of the ability to perceive “something better” as a possibility when that “something better” can indeed be achieved with just a little sacrifice and courage. The beginning of the new year has convinced me that it’s still not too late to reclaim the courage to seek more in life… but the new year also reminds me that at some point, it will be.

So I’m ardently hoping for a metamorphosis this year. But I guess what I truly desire is a reinvention, a revitalization – a new me that’s modeled after the old me, a synthesis of my current goals with my former ideals. And I’m counting on 2010 to make it happen. Well, really I’m counting on me to make it happen, to take accountability for where I am now and where I can be – a new year, a new start… a “restart” to the post-grad life.

• Features