First Slice: Life in the "Real World"

Wiping pizza grease from my fingertips, I uncross my legs and settle in. Sitting in the circle area of the classroom where I work, I visit with a college friend whom I haven't seen since graduation, and it is a collision of worlds I'd never expected.

Sonja is a fellow curly headed lady, and this day she wears a bright pullover fleece, the classic style favored by my fellow Colby graduates. We chat and eat, chat and eat, hoping to download as much as we can in these short 40 minutes. It quickly becomes apparent that we share a similar post-grad experience: college doesn't actually prepare you for the "real world."

No one ever tells you that meeting people is hard. They never gossip about the challenges of living in a new city where you're not always sure what to do with yourself. People don't talk about missing their people, even as they're proud and excited to be on an adventure. And as the conversation winds down, she she sums up those sensations perfectly: "going to the grocery store does not count as an activity."

By this she means, on those evenings or weekend afternoons when you really want to do something but don't have a companion or the oomph to figure out your own adventure, going to the grocery store seems like a good compromise. "Sure," you think, "I'll get out and about, and I'll be productive. Plus, I'll be seeing other humans, and that counts, right?"

Some days, it does. Some days, going grocery shopping is exactly what I want to be doing. It's almost therapeutic. Finding sales, planning meals, trying out new foods-it can feel like its own little adventure, teasing out my culinary abilities and testing my sale-hunting senses.

But in those moments when you're really just trying to convince yourself that you've done something with your day and interrupt your spree of being a hermit... Sonja's right. It doesn't count as an activity because it doesn't fulfill in the way that activities do. Instead of feeling productive and rejuvenating, it's lonely and lost-feeling. While my time out West has largely been incredible, there will always be days when it's hard. On those days, the grocery store provides only empty solace- though perhaps also the sustenance to figure it all out another day.