Goodbye To All That

Nary a day goes by that I don't find myself consumed by wondering where I will be after Christmas. I need to make a decision soon. Well, the decision will be made for me, essentially, if I don't have a job by the time I fly back to Michigan for the holidays on December 21st. I will need to have decided by the beginning of December, so that my housemates can find someone else to rent this basement room in my stead. So, it's either (miraculously) get a job here in Portland and stay, or go home and figure out the next step from there.

New York City is an option. I have two very close friends who are really pushing for me to live with them in their apartment. I think that I could really get in to the idea of living in NYC. As I have been considering it more seriously lately, I decided to find the text of Goodbye To All That by Joan Didion, which is probably one of the best descriptions of what it's like to be young and not quite comfortable in your new adult skin. And, of course, it made me want to pack my bags immediately and settle in to a meager existence on the east coast.

When I was younger I always imagined myself living in New York as a young adult. Of course, in those adolescent daydreams I was always the girlfriend of a grungy rockstar, so my vision may have to be slightly adjusted.

And just when I start to think that Portland isn't right for me and that I'm crazy to be out here when I could be living a life that is not much unlike the life I had back in college, I have a great night with a couple of my housemates and I feel like I'm right where I should be. I went to a neighborhood bar last night with Tony and Zack, two of the guys I live with. We drank some beers, played some pool, smoked some cigarettes (yuck, I know) and they ended up giving themselves haircuts. An image: drunk guy bending over, swaying from the many Pabsts just consumed, grabbing a fistful of his own hair and cutting it off with a pair of dull scissors.

I could be happy anywhere. Which closes no doors and does nothing to narrow down my decision. I know it's a bit silly to base major life decisions on something as subjective as "a sign." But signs are pretty much all that I've got going for me at this point. If I get a good job here in the next couple of weeks, I will take it as a sign that I should stay in Portland and see this through. If I get any response from jobs in New York that I have applied/will apply for, then that will be a sign of different portent.

And if I don't hear anything from any employer, then I will take it as a sign that I am forever doomed to live with my mom and talk to her dogs all day, every day.

Sometimes I think about "The Glass Menagerie" by Tenessee Williams, and the character of Laura. I think that's her name. She's the sister of the main character/narrator, and she is the terribly tragic girl who lives at home and feels too shy or scared to continue her classes at the secretary school, so she just walks around all day. She collects beautiful, fragile little glass animals and shuts herself off from the world completely. I know that my fate couldn't really be shared with a character like that, but sometimes it feels like it could.

As long as I refrain from collecting anything or signing up for secretary classes I'm in the clear, right?