$pent Millennial

Fun fact about me, if you want me to fall in love with a community, just show me to a local cafe and their public library. I have been this way as long as I can remember, a coffee-loving, book nerd! 

One time when trying to explain my love for libraries and bookstores to my partner, I said, “I think it is just being in a place with so many words…” I don’t think he quite got it. He is a different kind of nerd than I am. He fixes things, builds things in the physical. I dream up and create things in the abstract. He nerds out on building motors and fixing computers using doo-dads and thingamajigs and coding while I get lost in my mind trying to build ideas, systems, and hypotheticals, fixing social structures and systemic problems using words. He is concrete. I am concept. He is practical. I am whimsical. He is details, I am big-picture. I think we make the perfect team. 

But anyway, libraries and coffee shops. So, this week we are moving to Oregon, WI. Not really, but I told him to look into affordable apartments in the area (as if there is such a thing these days). Again, details go to him. I’m whimsically typing away at the public library overlooking fields of wildflowers.

Shockingly, this post isn’t really about coffee shops or libraries or even moving. This was just a fun little ride I took you on.

What I am here to share with you today is how I am in a very similar situation as I was 2 years ago, but under completely different circumstances. I want to share it with you because I don’t know if I would have fully believed it before experiencing it myself. I want to share with you how it feels, and how I got here. 

September 2022, I sat in my car parked in a library parking lot stuffing a soggy salad wrap into my mouth, washing it down with my homemade iced latte that I brought with me to work at 9 am that morning. It was my 5:30 pm coffee and lunch break. I was (and still am) horrible at bringing lunch to work, and was even worse about eating it at lunchtime. But, I had forced myself to prepare and bring something because I had tutoring after work. 

In addition to my 9 to 5, which often felt more like an 8 to 6 with weekend work thrown in for good measure, I had taken on tutoring as a side gig. That side hustle that everyone tells you about. The one that seems to be a requirement these days to make ends meet, to pay off your ill-gotten student debt, or to make rent as a one-income household…anyway, thoughts for a different day. 

So, there I was sitting in my car, completely spent. I was bitter and annoyed and disappointed and tired and stressed. I worked SO hard. I worked hard at work. I had worked hard to get to where I was professionally. I had followed all of the directions! How was I sitting in a darkening parking lot in a car I couldn’t pay off, stuffing a soggy salad wrap into my mouth before going to do an evening job? I thought I would be done with such gigs upon graduating with a Bachelor’s degree? I kind of thought that was the point of the tens of thousands of dollars spent…

As tears welled in my eyes , I watched families pile into the library excited to pick out new stories of fantasy and fairytales. I just kept thinking how it didn’t seem fair. I had done everything “right”. I had followed the directions. I even did it with the vigor and discipline of an overachieving perfectionist. It wasn’t fair. That was all I could think. 

But, I did it. I stuck it out for a good 6 months before I let the tutoring company know I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t dedicate the 3 nights a week and Saturday mornings in addition to the planning and prep time (unpaid) to something that barely broke even after paying for gas. In those 6 months, I don’t even know how much I made with this “side gig”. I know it wasn’t enough. The math just didn’t math. So, I quit. 

As tough as it seemed at the time, I look back on it with a certain fondness. I did it. I was out there really doing it. Trying. However, this is not a post to tell you to grind it out, take on the extra shifts and gigs, and work 20-hour days, yadayadayada, and practice gratitude while doing it. There are enough content creators out there for that. I’m not it. 

Those extra tutoring shifts did not pay off my car, or my student loans. I’m sorry. They just didn’t. I wish 6 months of a few extra nights and weekends could do that. But, that wasn’t my experience. It took discipline, sacrifice, strategic thinking, luck, privilege, and a whole bunch of other unfun stuff to crawl my way out of those debts. 

But now, I am here on the other side. And it makes all the difference. 

This morning I woke up to the biggest paycheck I have ever gotten hitting my account, thanks to a new job – yeah, a lot of personal growth, changes, and hard work there too.  In celebration, I treated myself to a latte at the local cafe before visiting a new library for a work event this evening. And so, here I am. Back again, but different.  

Just before typing this, I pulled into the library parking lot with a soggy homemade salad wrap to eat. (Hey, I am still in that nonprofit life, and not getting carried away with takeout is a big credit to my journey to the financial spot I am now in. So, I’m keeping my soggy salad wraps- at least for now) 

This time instead of bitter, I feel hopeful. Instead of sitting slumped in my car muttering to myself about how “unfair” it all is or wishing I could go home and collapse instead, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be, excited about the opportunity and those that are yet to come. I took my soggy wrap and enjoyed it on a cute bench outside the library enjoying the weather and scenery. Instead of burdened, I felt light. Instead of bitter, I felt grateful. 

I write this not to boast about how I have “made it” and everything is sunshine and rainbows now, but for those of you sitting in your car on a lunch break or between jobs, choking down a soggy salad wrap and tears thinking how unfair it all is, wondering if it will ever get better. I want to let you know that it can. You just have to keep going. You have to work hard and smart, and it won’t be fair. This just isn’t that kind of world. I have it easier than some of you, and some of you might have it easier than me in some ways, who knows. 

And it is okay to cry and kick and scream and cuss about how very unfair it all is. You don’t have to “be grateful for what you have” or “consider those who have it worse”. No. Forget that. You get to feel however you want about the unfairness. The key is, you can’t live there. You have to save some energy for focusing on what is within your control and then acting on it to make and find better for yourself. It won’t be easy, and most of it won’t be fun. But, it will be worth it. 

So, I share this story to let you know that you are doing it. Right now. In the messy, in the bitter, with your soggy salad wrap and car note. You are lowkey thriving, even if it is so lowkey you don’t even know it yet. 

Sometimes lowkey thriving looks like growth and feels like struggle. Sometimes it is leaving something bad for something better. Sometimes it is leaving something good for something new. Sometimes it is staying when it is hard, but healthy. Sometimes it is resting, so you can restore yourself. 

However you are doing it, you are doing it. This is the stuff. Keep going! 

I know new struggles will come and moments of annoyance, bitterness, stress, uncertainty are still a part of the deal, But for now, just let me enjoy it- and my soggy salad wrap from home.