“Where Are You Going In Life?”: A Holiday Special

Premiering this Wednesday night and lasting all through the holidays, brought to you by Your Family, the inevitable interrogation: “What are you doing with your life?” or the various other ways to phrase that prying query.

It’s open season for your relatives to find you at family dinners and ask about life. Oh, it seems so innocuous at first: “What classes are you taking?” “How’s that job?” And then: “So what do you want to do with that?” “Where are you going in life?”

Well, right now I’m headed for the eggnog – unless there’s some gin and tonic available, because I’m going to need something stronger to handle that question.

Since preschool we have been asked “What do you want to do?” And now that we’re twenty-somethings, the question still persists (*heavy sigh*) – and in so many other forms. People are no longer content to hear you want to be a fireman or a nurse – or, like I used to say, an Egyptologist. Sorry, guys, I don’t want to dust off pyramids anymore.

They want concrete, “realistic,” relevant answers. Like, what do you actually want to do? And not just what you want to do, but what are you doing. I imagine (read: hope) the inquiries will stop when I turn 30, but I think that’s false hope. The cross-examination only ceases once you fulfill first world society’s ideal of what is success: Steady job, permanent location, married, kids on the way. And if after achieving this, the variables fluctuate – say, you divorce or you quit your job to go do something else, God forbid – the grilling begins all over. I’ve seen it from afar: Suddenly your cousin is the condescending “So, Joe, now that you’re no longer as successful as me, what are you going to do about that?”

What Joe should say: “Sorry, my mouth is stuffed with turkey and sangria, so I can’t answer you.”

Senior year of college, the most contentious question to ask your peers was, “What are you doing after graduation?” Some people ask because they’re curious and have no judgment (ha! Everyone has judgment!), and some people want to know so they can compare life paths (“Mine puts me at $10K more than you”).

Millennials ducked that hurdle by assuring our collective selves that “it’s okay” not to know what you’re doing postgrad – until you’re a few years out. Like me now. But oh wait, I’m in grad school/have an internship/I must know what I’m doing.

WHERE DID THIS MYTH COME FROM?

Maybe, just maybe, I went to grad school to avoid answering the question of my life path. I got a BS in statistics, not in Life’s Purpose. And just because I’m in grad school for something super STEM-y does not mean I might not go become a New York columnist (which is better than a Minneapolis or LA columnist, obviously) or work with Ebola in Africa (which is what I would really love to do, do you hear that, Mom and Dad?). “So then why are you in grad school?” I don’t know!

But oh, if you don’t know about your career, we can change the subject. My aunt will ask if there’s anyone special in my life, and my mom will answer for me – and then she will add, “It’s because he doesn’t know how to compromise.” Well, eff you, too.

Finally, to shush everyone, I’ll admit, “I’m just working toward a place where one day I can make a pumpkin pie and not feel compelled to Instagram it to show that I’m an adult.”

However, I’m guessing they don’t make pumpkin pies in Africa. Sorry, everyone.

Unrequited, but Rational (I Swear)

By Cazey Williams Today in Starbucks I thought I saw you. Of course it couldn’t be you, because you’re on another continent, and I’m here pursuing the practical path of PhD student. But let’s not pretend I forgot about you.

The synopsis is short. I liked your best friend, but then I met you. (Your friend foretold we would get along, not that that matters.) You invited me to your hometown and entranced me. I should’ve kissed you, but I didn’t. I tried to hang out with you again, but you always said, “Rain chk plz”…unless your best friend was around.

You (the reader this time) would think this is an open-and-shut case; she didn’t like me, and maybe this is true, but I offer up the defense.

The Monday after I should have kissed you, I saw your best friend. She had no idea we had been together, though I knew you two had been texting.

You edited a literary magazine. I submitted this story. I called it “The Hardest Glass” – because your friend told me, in a Gchat, that you’re the hardest glass to break. I had to pull an Ian McEwan (Atonement, anyone?) and fabricate a “happier” ending where the boy and girl reunite, though not for good. Never for good. You’re not someone I see ever being somewhere, with someone, for good. And you probably take that as a compliment. You should.

Maybe you read my story, because you invited me to your party. I came, we chatted, but I never want anyone to know I have affection, so I left. I did that to you several times. I want to say we’re both cowards, but in hindsight, it’s one-sided.

I resent myself for remembering these trivial details. I am a rational person. I haven’t seen you in over a calendar year. Yet here I am taken aback to see your ghost in Starbucks. It’s not a frequent longing; I only comb your Facebook photos every six months, less often than I judge my high school peers I haven’t seen in over half a decade. But I resent myself (I backspaced over the word hate) because it is every six months. You should be forgotten by then, like every other lust/crush I’ve ever had.

And I hate myself because when I post things on social media, I wonder if you’ll see it, and what you’ll think, and if you’ll like it, though I know you won’t, even though I like your things methodically, only things that I can objectively justify for liking. I wonder if you’ll see this.

I worry I’m creepy. Okay, I know I am “creepy” from the removed standpoint of observer. But because I recognize this, am I less creepy? And why can’t I get over you? Why are you in all the songs on my Spotify? “Stubborn Love,” “Riptide,” “I Already Forgot Everything You Said.” And “Stay With Me.” And “Coeur D’Alene.”

And because I can’t get rid of you, I wonder (read: wish) do you have the same thoughts? And because I’m a rational person, I know you don’t. But because I over think things, because I’m a rational person, if I can so irrationally hold onto a crush (and no one here is mistaking this for love/romance/butterflies and strawberries), then you could, too. But you don’t. And neither should I.

Yet I continue to over think you. I rationalize you. I don’t like you; I like your ideal: The bonafide bohemian, the wanderlust millennial. You travel by moon’s phases and morning’s impulses, and I, I live by Google Calendars and emails. I want that, not you.

That makes me feel more rational.

Is Selfie-Confidence the New Self-Confidence?

A guy once did a good creep over of all my social media accounts and asked/told me: "You're a good-looking girl, but there's no selfies so you must lack self-confidence?" We never talked again because what the hell.

But then it happened again. A new friend request, then a few days later, "It's weird that you don't post pictures of yourself anywhere. Why is that?"

That was less bizarre to me, so I engaged further in the dialogue, only to be met eventually with the question as to why I wouldn't put up more selfies of myself UNLESS I didn't have confidence in my physical looks.

This time, though, it did make me really wonder about it. Why am I getting slammed for not posting pictures of myself? Doesn't it mean something that I value myself enough, and have enough confidence on my own, without needed the "likes" and approvals of my social media peers? Is "omg hawt" from my friend that feels morally obligated to comment on a selfie really supposed to make my heart flutter with self-confidence?

Why is it now assumed that because I don't take daily pictures of myself and subject my followers to scroll through them imply that I am a heifer? I mean, I am self- aware enough to know I am no model, but I am also confident enough to know that my looks don't make people want to burn their eyes out. Or at least, no one has yet to burn their eyes out after seeing me, that I know of.

If this is a sign of the times, I want out.

I want back to the days where a guy will compliment you in person, and not just throw you a "like" on one of your super-filtered is that even you anymore selfies and call it a day. Let's #throwbackthursday to a time before #wcw'ing someone was a way of telling them you liked them. Oh. My. Gosh. Maybe we can even talk about our feelings face to face and not via text messages rife with ambiguous emojis.

Nah, I'm probably asking too much.