I guess it goes without saying that I’ve been MIA for a while.

In a nutshell, it’s safe to say that I’ve been going through a lot of mixed emotions, confusion, and anxiety over the past, present, and future. By that, I mean that I’ve just graduated college and have entered the post-grad working life. I didn’t really know what to expect at first, and, despite me constantly seeking out insight from school career counselors and friends who have graduated already, it’s just one of those experiences you have to go through for yourself to know what it’s really like…as well as what you’ll eventually take out of it.

So by no means do I ever expect life to be perfect, but this has been my personal experience thus far in my first full week of full-time post-grad work life. To add on, this is neither a complaint nor boasting of my life either, just simply an outlet to lay out my experiences for hopefully others to learn from or relate to.

TLDR; Post-grad life isn’t always your brightest or most “content-with-life” moment, but it will most certainly be one of your greatest learning experiences in building your life as an adult member of society. In other words, there is always a brighter side to your situation.

First off, transitioning from my college senior class schedule where you’ve got maybe one or two classes in the afternoon per day to starting a full day of work at 9am Monday to Friday really hit me like a major trainwreck.

By the second day, I already felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and like I didn’t know where my life was going anymore. Utter. Devastation. Am I making the right decisions? Am I happy with what I’m doing? Is all the hard work I’ve done these past 4 years in college going to end up somewhere?

But then I (with the help of someone special) saw the brighter side of the situation–I thought: Wait, who actually does know where their life is going right after they graduate college? Being in your early 20’s can be the time of your life at times as well as the time of your greatest independent struggles.

For me, this came with accepting that your first year of working out of college probably won’t be the easiest transition of your life. Even if I already was aware of it, it was hard to accept that even though we’ve all done so much in college from extracurricular to classwork, every job I dreamed of having required 5-10+ years of experience. I thought: What am I supposed to do in the meantime of acquiring the job for that experience to get this dream job?

The obvious answer eventually came to me that there’s actually so much I can learn from this first year of post-grad if I really put in the effort. In a sense, it’s essentially the launchpad to my career aspirations, and I find that I’m so grateful for that in the end.

After much thought and (admittedly) many post-college breakdowns, I continue to repeat to myself that great dreams never come that easy. As Drake said, started from the bottom, 🙂

It’s a bittersweet feeling, but the true reward is remaining optimistic and believing that my hard work in the entry-level workforce in these beginning years will be my building blocks to get to where I want to be.

I guess one has just got to realize that, while it’s a truly amazing accomplishment to graduate college, that does not mean that the rest of your life can now enter cruise control.

The main thing that has kept me going throughout the toughest trials of my life has been my dear blog, and, now that I’m back to writing on it, I can’t tell you how relieved and thankful I feel right now. As a creative person, not doing any creative projects or the like for an extended amount of time just makes me feel so suffocated. Writing and creating media content truly is my passion at heart, and it makes me happy to have established this creative outlet of mine.

So to all my dazed and confused newly-graduated or soon-to-be-graduated 20-somethings out there, I feel ya. Graduating college isn’t a pass into an easy life just because you’re free from classes and homework.The grind never stops, right? We just got to keep fighting and working towards our dreams of being a successful _____(fill in with your career endgoals).

Peace and love,

Kat ❤