Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Is it just me, or is this being an adult thing easier than expected?

Granted, I've been at it for a grand total of four days now, so everything I have to say should be taken with a grain of salt, but hear me out. So buying everything for my move? Between thrift stores, Ross, and Marshall's, #MayatheBargainHunter had no problems. My mother, grandmother, and uncle graciously helped me with the actual moving, and in four years of dorm rooms, I've become a pro at unpacking and decorating in a day or so. My mom and grandma also took me on an initial grocery run and trip to Target to buy, among other things, an ironing board, because that would have been awkward to take on the metro. But then on Saturday afternoon around 4:30, they got on the road and here I was, alone in my new house in DC, establishing myself as an independent young woman and shit. 

...And everything was fine. I cleaned the kitchen and then went upstairs to continue unpacking. I found out that my housemate wasn't coming home that night and didn't freak out about it (much). I went to sleep at a reasonable bedtime. The next day, I woke up at 7:48 and went on a three-and-a-half hour cleaning spree. It involved stainless steel cleaner, window cleaner, Fantastic all-purpose cleaner, scrubbing floors with Swiffer Wet Mop pads because the Swiffer part was nowhere to be found, Lysol bathroom cleaner, Mr. Clean Toilet Bowl Cleaner, a broom and a dustpan, and nearly an entire roll of paper towels. My landlord came over later that day and the first words out of his mouth were, "Whoa! Extreme home makeover! You're a welcome addition to the house already." I made pasta and meat sauce that night for dinner, with enough leftover to take for lunch on my first day of work. I picked out my outfit for my first day and went to sleep at a reasonable hour. 

The next day I got up at 7:30, showered, ironed my clothes, professionalized my hair, made breakfast, packed my lunch, and walked to work. I did not get lost. I did say hello to people as I walked down the street. A nontrivial percentage of them ignored me or looked at me as if I should be institutionalized. I did not worry about it. I got to work exactly at 9:00, met my supervisor, and had a generally amazing first day. I think I'm going to thoroughly and completely love my job. AND I think I'll be good at it. And that's a great thing to be able to say about a well-paying good-benefit-giving right-out-of-college job. Hell, it's a great thing to be able to say about any job at any point in one's life. 

Today was my second day of work and I've already been heavily praised for my performance. I've started doing some actual work instead of just orientation-y things, and I still really like it. I didn't realize how much I was deeply craving a way to apply sociology to actually helping people and influencing things until I joined this company where we do that every. single. day. And today I may only have been helping in the smallest of ways (calling Quality Directors at hospitals for this project we've been contracted to that's aimed at reducing inpatient harm and hospital readmissions), but I saw direct results and was just like, FUCK YEAH I LOVE WHAT I DO. And I came home and made a burger for dinner and then realized I didn't have any ketchup, so I went to the store and got some. 
Then I came upstairs and was like, oh, the 4th of July is next week. This is another one of those holidays that stores like to commercialize on to have entirely unrelated sales on big things like mattresses and TVs. I should check Sleepys to see if my bed is on sale. Not only is it on sale, but there's free shipping on online purchases over $599.99 during some 36 hour window that right now is part of. I searched online for a coupon code that saved me ten percent, bringing my order total to $601.97 for a full sized headboard, footboard, mattress, boxspring, and bed frame. #winning

tl;dr version: Goodbye strugglebus, hello awesome adult life. 

No comments:

Post a Comment