Three Weeks Post-Grad, I Still Sit On My Kitchen Floor Eating Cold Cereal For Dinner
The cereal is generic Cheerios I bought on sale last month, and it’s gone soggy because I got distracted scrolling through my camera roll ten minutes ago. The TV’s playing New Girl, the same season I’ve rewatched three times since I moved into this tiny apartment last month. There’s no reason for me to be sitting on the floor instead of at the table, except the table’s covered in unopened mail and the stack of resumes I still haven’t finished editing. It’s not that I’m depressed, not really. I just… feel empty. And I don’t know who to say that to without sounding like a brat.
Everyone warned me about so many things before graduation. They warned me about student loan bills, about how hard job hunting is, about how you lose touch with half your friends from college within six months. No one warned me about the emptiness. The kind that doesn’t scream, just sits in your chest like the extra sweater you carried around all day and forgot to put down.
When I was still in school, I complained about it every single day. I’d text my best friend at 2am during finals week, complaining that I couldn’t wait to be done, no more 8am lectures, no more group projects with people who don’t pull their weight, no more begging the registrar to change my class schedule. I had this whole vision of post-grad life: I’d wake up at a reasonable hour, go to the local coffee shop to apply for jobs, take a nice walk in the afternoon, cook actual healthy dinners instead of microwave mac and cheese. That lasted three days. Now I hit snooze until 11:30, my laundry’s been sitting in the dryer for four days and I can’t be bothered to fold it, and more nights than not I end up right here on the kitchen floor with cold cereal.
Last weekend I went to my little cousin’s high school graduation party. All the aunts and uncles circled around me, asking what’s next. I said the same thing everyone says: I’m just figuring it out, applying to marketing jobs, taking it one day at a time. My great-aunt Marnie patted my arm and said oh, that’s lovely! My grandson got a job at an accounting firm straight out of college, makes $72k a year already. I smiled and nodded and stuffed three deviled eggs into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to talk, then hid in the guest bathroom for ten minutes refreshing my old college group chat. No one’s texted it in a week. Everyone’s scattered: one’s in Boston for law school, one’s traveling around Southeast Asia, my old roommate moved to Portland for a job and left me this apartment and a half-empty bottle of dish soap. The chat’s just gotten quiet.
I bought a pothos plant last week because TikTok said houseplants help with post-grad loneliness. It’s sitting on my windowsill, all wilted at the edges because I forgot to water it for ten days. It’s still alive, somehow. Sort of like me.
The weirdest part is the contradiction. I wanted this. I wanted to be done with school. I worked my ass off for four years to get this degree. And now that I have it, most days I feel like I’m just waiting for something to start. When I was in school, every single day had little milestones built in. A paper due on Wednesday, a club meeting Thursday, a final next week. Even the annoying stuff gave my days shape. Now the only thing I have on my calendar for the next two weeks is a dentist appointment I almost forgot about. It’s so quiet. I caught myself turning on the TV just for background noise last Tuesday, at 2pm, when I was the only one home. I never used to do that.
I got a first-round interview for a marketing assistant job last week. I was nervous, I prepared for two days, I got off the call and was proud of how it went. And then I sat down on the couch, and the empty feeling came right back. I thought it was the job hunt, that once I had a job the emptiness would go away. But even after the good interview news, it was still there. It’s not about the job, not entirely. It’s that graduation is this big, loud, emotional ending. Everyone hugs you, you take a million pictures, your family throws you a dinner. And then… nothing. The next thing doesn’t just start automatically. You’re just here, in the in-between, with all this free time and no one telling you what to do with it.
I ran into my old high school English teacher at the grocery store yesterday. She remembered my name, asked what I was up to. I said I just graduated from college, and she lit up and said “That’s such an exciting time! The world is your oyster!” And I just nodded and agreed, because what do you say? That it’s not exciting right now, it’s just empty? That I feel guilty for feeling this way because I’m so lucky I got to go to college, I have a place to live, I’m healthy, I should be over the moon? But gratitude doesn’t fill the empty spot. Gratitude just makes you feel bad for feeling empty, which makes the whole thing worse.
Yesterday I went for a walk around the park near my apartment, and I saw a group of college kids carrying coolers and frisbees, yelling at each other about who forgot the beer. And I’m 22, for god’s sake, I’m not old. But I felt like I was looking at them through a window, like I’m not part of that world anymore. I don’t have a cohort, I don’t have a team of people going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. Everyone’s on their own path now, and most of them are miles away.
It’s 8:45 now. My cereal’s completely soggy. The pothos is still wilted on the windowsill. I have one job application I’ve been putting off for three days that’s due tomorrow. I don’t have some big, pretty conclusion to this. I don’t know if the emptiness goes away next month, or when I get a job, or next year. Some days it’s not even there, for a little while. Last Wednesday I went to see that new horror movie alone, and I ate a whole large popcorn by myself and didn’t have to share, and for two hours I didn’t think about the emptiness at all. That was nice.
I used to think feeling empty meant I messed up. That I took the wrong classes, that I should have planned better, that I’m doing post-grad wrong. Now I’m starting to think it’s just what happens when every structure that was built for you your whole life—high school, college, all the rules and deadlines and people around you in the same boat—falls away, and you haven’t built your new one yet. It’s not good, it’s not some beautiful growing pain that’s gonna make me stronger, not right now anyway. Right now it’s just empty. And maybe that’s okay, for now. I think I’m gonna go fold that laundry that’s been in the dryer. Or maybe I’ll put on another episode of New Girl. We’ll see. (Word count: 1182)
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