D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e     May 2005

The Real World

If college is really the best time of your life, what about all those years after graduation?

The end of my freedom is fast approaching. The proverbial Man is about to get me down—that is, if "he" will have me. In a few short weeks I'm entering that "real world" that every college student fears or should fear and that I speak so frequently about. At 9 a.m. on May 14 in the hot and sluggish density that falls upon Nashville in the late spring, I will leave the dorm life for good. After graduation the day before—yes, that's right, I'm graduating on Friday the 13th and I can't tell if this is poor planning or just an evil irony—I will have 24 hours of college life left. I should be free from any worries, 24 hours of freedom, enjoying the champagne and strawberries with my family that my $140,000 education bought me, but I doubt I will be filling my head with champagne dreams and caviar wishes that day. I'll most likely be entering into a 24-hour paranoia, like the singing boat tunnel in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the movie, not the book—the movie has the creepy music you don't get to experience in Dahl's classic).

I wish I could give you my forwarding address, but I can't. I'm an overly qualified almost recent college grad whom no one will give a chance. I have two majors under my belt and an extracurricular activity background I dare you to challenge. But still I feel unfulfilled and frightened. I have sent out a multi-dozen amount of resumes and have had a dreary "I'm sorry but we have already filled that position" or "I'm sorry we have nothing for you" set of responses. My boyfriend doesn't think I have enough faith in myself; he's right, I know I don't, but I can't help it. Plus, come on, he had a job lined up for himself in December while I was still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. So after 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 14, the last box will enter into my car and I hope it drives me to somewhere or something.

For $140,000 and plenty of debt you would think they would guarantee me a job. We have to sign the honor code when we enter Vanderbilt; they should have to sign a contract promising me a job after I go broke paying them to educate me. Don't get me wrong: I would not change my place of education for anything. I'll never forget the Southern girls falling on their asses in mini-skirts and stiletto heels as this Northern girl watched them slip on the ice in mid-December. I'll never forget the basketball games where we came back to win and rushed the court. I'll never forget the fights and the occasional morning when you wake up and don't remember what happened the night before, puzzle-piecing your life back together, whether drunk or perfectly sober and hyped up on life (the latter was much more often the case than the former, thank god, because my folks didn't pay my college education to major in alcohol poisoning like far too many college students).

Everyone says that college was the best time in their life. College was an amazing experience—oh, the irony that I'm writing this sitting in my Southern Lit class—but I hope that life in general becomes the best time in my life. Why shelter a four-year period of my life (yeah, that's right, I did it in four!) and categorize it into the best years of my life? Why can't you have 78.6 best years of your life?

College was filled with a whole lot of stuff, that proverbial, omnipresent stuff you can't explain nor do you want to or need to. Last night, for instance, I had to drag my roommate's high school-age sister home from an unsafe situation as she was visiting us. I hung up the phone and exclaimed to my roommates, "I've become my mother!" and whispered to myself, "It feels pretty good." College was filled with calls home to my mom and dad complaining about the ignorant who sit around me in my political science courses (of course, those ignorant have jobs already—explain that!), calls of tears and joys for grades and guys. College was filled with cat fights, Fritos, flings, football and frat parties. College was four years of crappy cafeteria food that you can't get enough of, because feeding yourself is just too difficult. College was cleaning out your metaphorical and real refrigerator and screaming at the mold that has been growing into flubber in the veggie drawer. But so is life. I'm not going to mi
ss the frat parties, which is pretty much all that's left behind and not revisited in my May 14, 9:01 a.m. "real life." The laughing and random eating of an entire pint of Chunky Monkey (I don't even like Chunky Monkey; I just like how it sounds—I'm more of a classic vanilla bean girl), or the calling home to complain about the ignorant are just a part of life in general, not solely a part of college.

As winter changes to spring, the cold dismal rains of March and April fall upon my Nashville home. I often find myself taking solace in the paths that run underneath the magnolia trees that have been here since Vanderbilt's onset in 1873. The large waxy leaves bead the rain like windshield Rainex and protect me and the squirrels that have taken shelter beneath its winged branches. I often stand underneath the magnolias and listen to the drops beating against the leaves and wonder where the squirrels go and think about how fast the magnolias must grow—slow steps towards greatness.

College is like the magnolia trees that abound on this campus. The sweet-smelling flowers draw you there, the leaves protect you, and the soil lets you grow towards greatness. The magnolia has no set job but to live its long life. The $80,000 salaries that some Vandy grads will earn in their first year out of college may be financially rewarding, but will their jobs be mentally and physically rewarding? I think the magnolia would argue that it had no "best years of its life" but one amazing life reaching towards the sun and protecting those less fortunate.

That's what I want. That's what I've learned in college. So in the end, I don't have a paying job—yet—but I can stand in the fresh-cut grass, be proud of myself and reach towards the sun.

Courtney E. Fryxell's parents, who publish Desert Exposure, hope to be able to report soon that not only is she a terrific "kid," but that she's also gainfully employed.

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