Nothin’ but the Truth.

I seriously feel like a walking question mark. I haven’t had a very easy transition from college to “the real world”. I am currently working another horrible retail job where I only work around 15hrs a week on average. I can’t save money when all my paychecks go towards filling my gas tank. Don’t you hate it when you build up these extravagant plans after college and the real world comes and smacks you across the face? It’s a bitch. I really feel like a big ball of frustration because all I want to do is save money and move to NYC by the end of the summer (which is the plan regardless if I have enough money). I know that may sound risky to most but the reasoning is just. I want to move on with my life. I am ashamed to be working a retail job after college when I went around for YEARS saying I was going to get a job in the entertainment industry. I don’t want people to know that I spend 3 mornings a week folding/ organizing panty displays and greet customers with a fake smile. That’s not what I want to do. I want to be working for someone I actually respect (I see the irony in this statement because who in the entertainment industry deserves respect?). Well, for the past four years I’ve been in a steady routine of classes, papers and exams. That is over and now I actually have to move on and make my own connections and prove that I am worthy of a job at a TV network. Easier said than done.  I have been applying for jobs in the “business” for the past 2 months and have not received a phone call, email…. Anything. It’s frustrating. I am the type of person who wants instant gratification and that’s not how life works…. And that life lesson sucks. So, I decided last week that I will be moving to NY by the end of the summer (August) and that’s that. Well, there are more steps to this process than I thought.   

      Not only do I have to find a job but I also have to find a place to live (that I can afford). NYC is quite expensive. I have to keep telling myself that price cannot stop me from pursuing my dreams. Well, that’s not the only problem. My friend Erica (who is one of the coolest people I know) made me re-think this whole idea of moving. She is a very dear friend of mine and she told me that she would start having children just so I could be her nanny and not have to move. Funny, I know, but this did make me think of how hard it’s going to be to leave my friends and family. I have lived in Pittsburgh for the past 22 years and I didn’t leave for college. I have some serious roots in this town. I don’t know how well I’m going to deal with the transition from the ‘Burgh to NYC. I’m scared. I have also had my friend Angela tells me that she is going to miss me and that she is preparing herself for when I move. This stuff makes me feel like I’m being a bad friend because I’m selfish and want to move. I have so many things going through my head right now.  My mom is hilarious because at first, she didn’t want me to move at all and since October she’s been saying that IF I have to move she is rooting for NYC. My dad is kindof in La La land about the whole thing but that’s what makes him awesome.  But it’s the friend thing that’s getting to me. I know how bad it felt when my friends left me to go to college and I don’t want to do that to them. However, Erica is getting married within the next year and I’m sure Angela isn’t far behind. They have their lives pretty much figured out and I’m still working at this retarded retail job. I want something else in life besides customer service skills. I have avoided the dating scene (or it avoided me….ha ha!) for the past 5 months because I don’t want to meet anyone in Pittsburgh because I don’t want to be tied down in this town. Is it a bad thing to go for your dreams even if your friends are upset? I have wanted to be in this business for a long time and I finally figured out that if I go know there is nothing holding me back (relationship wise). Am I selfish?          

   I tend to freak out with big life changes. When my sister got married, I felt so old. I felt like, “Holy crap my sister is a grownup and I guess I am almost one too since she is only 4 years older than me.” But I think the matter I am dealing with is this transition from “College Marie” to “Grown up Marie”. I really want to be a writer for a TV show. That is the goal. I also want to write and sell a screenplay. Not many people know this but I have always wanted to be in show business. The problem was that I can’t sing or act so the next choice was to become a writer. To my own surprise, I enjoy writing and I think I’m pretty good at it. I love making people laugh. I love it!!!! My idols are Conan O’Brien and Trey Parker. When I started in college, I had NO CLUE what I wanted to do with my life. I was sick of the “safe” majors like teaching and nursing. I wanted to take a chance. Then I figured out that people who know how to write and are professional (for the most part) are able to make an impact in the entertainment industry. You need to be smart, though. Sure, Conan O’Brien went to Harvard and I was a product of Community College and Pitt but I still learned a lot by telling and re-telling stories. Conan has a way of telling stories so non-chalant that it doesn’t matter if it’s truth or fiction. I learned a lot about not just how to write a story but how to tell one just by watching Conan as I typed my papers in the wee hours of the morning. I always told my mom that I wanted to drop out of school because Trey Parker made it big without graduating. Well, I graduated but neither guy had it easy. Conan struggled and so did Trey. I even read that Trey directed a Barney video. This business isn’t easy but I want to start now. I’m sick of feeling like a failure. I’m proud of my friends who are getting married and going to med, law and graduate school but I want to get on my way too. I want to be able to tell people how I work at such and such network for some big shot. I feel like I am so different sometimes from my friends that I am almost unrealistic and that scares me. I want to be able to know that my dreams are tangible but they’re not. It’s a scary, scary thing.            

 Maybe I have to be a little selfish. Maybe I do have to move to NYC and hope for the best. I don’t know. I am terrified, confused, angry, sad… a mixed bag of emotions. I just wonder if Conan O’Brien and Trey Parker worried this much about taking such a chance in such an unpredictable business. I hate when I feel like a walking question mark but I do feel a little better getting this out.