Last summer, I travelled to St. Louis, Missouri for a part-time internship at a literary magazine. Though both St. Louis and my literary magazine, River Styx, are things I’ll happily talk about any time, I’m currently reflecting on how much I learned from a summer living independently. I wasn’t entirely alone because for the first two months I had suitemates and the last month I lived with the wonderful board president at my internship, but I took care of almost everything myself: cooking, grocery shopping, transportation, cleaning, socializing, et cetera. I also became employed for the first time ever as a part-time sales associate at a pool supply store, which helped me pay the bills.
It was an incredibly challenging and often exhausting time—St. Louis public transportation is terrible and I sometimes got up at 7AM to make it to work on time—but I also learned so much and I’m so proud of myself. I paid my own rent (for the first two months)! I learned to cook for myself without getting food poisoning even once! I travelled to Chicago, where I met my friends, walked through Millennium Park, and saw the Art Institute! It gave me a lot of faith in myself that I can be an independent and capable adult, even in a city I’d never been to before, where I didn’t know anybody.
I made some great friends, from other summer interns to a few locals to Pat (the woman I stayed with) and her two cats, Otis and Fiona. Befriending Fiona, who is quite prickly, is actually what I consider one of my greater accomplishments that summer. Picture below:
To other college students like me who are worried about the difficulties of being a functional adult, I know it can be hard at first, especially because college can be a bit of a bubble compared to real life. Just make sure to take things one step at a time! Google is your best friend and cooking meals is time-consuming but will save you lots of money and can be really rewarding. I recommend figuring out the local transit system right away if you don’t have a car. Surviving days when I’d barely slept, worked a six-hour shift, and still made myself cook meals and talk to my friends convinced me I could survive anything that summer. That confidence makes it really worth it. You also get so much independence, which I miss now that I’m back at college. It helps that in bigger cities, strangers often don’t care what you’re doing. I could choose what and when to eat, where to shop, and where to go sightseeing on my own terms. I could spend my weekends indoors petting the cats and reading books, or I could be exploring the art museum or the zoo, without any external pressure.
While it definitely takes some adjustment to be independent, being able to do that this summer was a really fun experience without the increased anxiety I would experience if I had to be like that permanently. The freedom was wonderful to have, and it was interesting to handle the responsibility!
Image Credit: [X]
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