The Other Side of the Looking Glass

This is the third, and possibly final, entry in the “Glass” series of posts. The first, “Separated by Glass,” established that I envisioned a thin glass window acting as a barrier between my high school self and adulthood. When I entered college, “Crawling Through Glass” expressed my distress when I finally broke through and was forced to deal with a modicum of responsibility.

If I was midway through crawling out of the window in my last entry, I am almost completely on the other side of it now.

Put simply, I got a job, and I’m going to be moving in the next three weeks. In three weeks, I’ll be living in a completely different room, completely different building, different state — for the first time since I moved as an infant. It’s from Connecticut to Boston, Massachusetts, less than two hours by driving. But it may as well be the length of the Earth to the moon as far as my perception goes.

This is big, this is huge. I want to put on a strong face, but the truth is I’m utterly scared, to my core. I’m scared of being on my own, I’m scared of having to report every day for work. I’m scared because I’m still really the same person I was when I entered high school. I foolishly thought that since I changed so much at once then, I didn’t need to change any further. So I didn’t get my license. And I didn’t really pursue retail or minimum wage jobs. And I didn’t live it up with my friends after high school.

But now, I’m having to change and learn everything at once, instead of incrementally. And it’s incredibly daunting.

Will I be able to do it? I don’t have a choice. My volition has nothing to do with it. I’m starting work in early February, and that’s that. I’ve already said yes. And I’m excited by the job and what I can do. But the work isn’t what’s keeping me up at night. It’s living on my own, and having somewhere to report to every day. And maybe the schedules too — I have no idea how quickly I’m expected to work, but I can adjust to that.

I’m very very excited at this job, and what it means for my future. And I know that I will adapt and change and in about two months, I’ll be fine and mostly settled in. But everything is all happening very fast.

Three weeks. That’s all I’ve got left on Earth. And then, it’s onto Wonderland.
-Andrew