Stuck in the middle

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Welcome to "Coffee Talks"!
​Through these refreshing posts (hopefully paired with your favorite caffeinated beverage), I share anecdotes, fun facts, and reflections from my life away from the classroom. So, imagine we are sharing a conversation over coffee (I’ll have an iced chai with oat milk) – you choose the place. I’ll provide the topic.

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Yesterday was September 1st (when I write this), otherwise known as the first day of fall for many Minnesotans (I do not want to acknowledge the encroaching weekend heat wave). It was also "squash night" at my house. No, not the game of squash – the vegetable. That’s right, my fall stir-crazy roommates and I dedicated an entire evening to preparing a luxurious butternut squash (with its roasted seeds as appetizers), humming along to the Over the Garden Wall playlist, and fangirling over season two of Heart Stopper. It was an evening celebrating fall and the home we built together on the hill.

The start of a new month also marks the end of week one of the courses at my university and the last Friday before the beginning of the local district’s school year. For the past four days, I watched my roommates come and go with their backpacks, lunch boxes, and rehearsal tote bags. I oddly felt like a stay-at-home mother in the early evenings; I roasted my vegetables and potatoes for a week of solo dinners while greeting my roommates with a chipper and wistful “How were classes today?”. 

Not that I mind slow evenings, filling the house with smells of spices, or dedicating mornings to reading my new library book before work. But at the moment, I feel stuck in the middle: caught in between college and career life. At home, I am a college student without the stability of course schedules or the structure of assignments. I overhear discussions of meetings and gatherings on campus I long to be a part of. But I reluctantly recognize that my participation hinders my transition away from that era, that identity. Meanwhile, my free time is spent catching up with classmates – through Instagram stories or choppy car FaceTimes – about their new grown-up careers as full-time teachers. 

When the conversation turns to me, I endeavor to offer any new updates. Until the district school year begins, I am at a standstill: working a few days a week at my other part-time job and attempting to fill the rest of my days with productivity and quality “me time.” In a way, my summer is not yet over. I still sleep in on weekdays, commit to long runs late in the morning, and plan for a family vacation. I wait for a signal to kick start my career – to settle into a routine, but nothing has yet arrived.

A side-effect of my perfectionism is a tendency to be overly self-critical and judgmental. The spiral of questions resumes its orbit around my head like a cartoon storm cloud. Waiting for job postings, email notifications, and signs to progress to the next stage is aggravating. This impatience will fade with the tide of the impending school year, but the familiar existentialism has returned with the turn of the seasons. And I must acknowledge closure before I invest in self-actualization and my career transition. 

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