Hello party people! Long time no see!
Last time you heard from me, I was underemployed as a kennel assistant at an animal hospital. I was depressed, living at home, and frustrated. Here is what has happened since, in handy bullet point form:
- I got a job as a scientist in PA. I started in July. I now live in the land of buggies and when the wind blows just right, you can smell the horse poo for miles and miles.
- I got an apartment, by myself, that I struggle to afford. All of my coworkers either have roommates or live at home, but I didn’t have that luxury when I moved across the country to completely unknown territory.
- My upstairs neighbors are making me lose my mind one minute at a time. He has some sort of anger issue that involves slamming furniture around at 1 in the morning and yelling. It freaks me out, and I wish he would go away.
That’s about it. So, let’s take a moment to laugh at the plight of millennials for a moment (old people’s favorite thing do!)
I am a scientist. That’s my literal job title. I work with drug products and make sure they’re safe for the public. And I make significantly less than a general manager at McDonalds does. Between my rent, car payment, insurance, gas, groceries, internet, utilities, and gas bills, I make less than I spend each month. I ate slimy, funky tasting Caesar salad for lunch today because it was food in my fridge and I can’t afford to let leftovers go to waste. People keep telling me to throw out leftovers after 3 days and I keep laughing. I can’t afford to throw out food! I have only gotten food poisoning once the entire time I have lived here, so it can’t be that bad.
I am very lucky; I have parents willing to help me out when I need it. But I don’t want to resort to accepting help from the. Since moving here 6 months ago, I have borrowed 3460 dollars from them. My savings account has decreased by over 3000 dollars in 6 months.
I don’t know how people are supposed to survive like this. I work in STEM, I moved across the country to just get the opportunity to work, and I am failing. I did everything right: third in my graduating class, good major, networked out the wazoo. And I am flailing aimlessly, debating on whether I should take money out of my savings account (again) to pay the bills or wait until next week, when I’m paid. My boyfriend comes to visit about once a month, and I am thrilled, partly because I love him deeply, but partly because we can drive his car and he’ll take me out to eat and I can save some money.
I don’t have any helpful advice or nice salutations here. I’m just yelling into the void, as most millennials do, about how I’m stressed and anxious and eating yogurt that expired two weeks ago. About how when I tell someone older than me about my struggles, they completely shrug me off, or tell me its not a big deal, or suggest I get married to my engineer boyfriend (because he’ll par for your car, sweetie!).
I want to go skiing with my rich friends on the weekends. I want to wear fancy clothes and go to coffee shops and move out of the apartment with the roid-rage neighbor and into a tiny house. But instead I’m waiting to go grocery shopping until February because I currently have 22 dollars left in my budget for the rest of my month.
We can do this. I can work my way into better opportunities. But damn, it’s hard sometimes keeping everyone around me believing that the sun shines out of my ass.