Freedom of the Future

That summer was odd.  I suppose that the summer following your first year of college is different from others, but still.

I felt like my mom started being mad at me for leaving and going back to college on June first.  My brother had just graduated from college and started his real career away from home.  I myself had three different jobs that summer. 

My first job was working retail.  I was lucky to get a position at my favorite clothing store.  I knew it would teach me valuable customer service skills and maybe even a few retail management details.

Okay, fine.  Let's call a spade a spade.  I got that job for the clothing discount.  I don't think I made a cent working there.  But man, my clothes were awesome sophomore year.

The second job was a babysitting position three days a week.  Three full days with two children.  One of my charges was a hyper-active three-year old.  This girl looked like an angelic character out of a Dr. Seuss book.  Don't let that fool you.  She was precocious, devilish and possibly in need of some sort of toddler yoga - find your chi - kind of class.  Her nine month old brother had like the biggest head I've ever seen.  Hands down.  But he pretty much just laughed at everything and ate mushed carrots so I couldn’t complain.

I've left the best job for last.  And by "best" I actually mean "most heinous."  I had the extreme pleasure of standing in Kmart, handing out coupons for Pantene Pro-V conditioner.  I was stationed next to the Martha Stewart Collection where a three-minute video on how to make a bed (not kidding) played over and over and over and over and over....

Funny what can happen over the course of a year.  Well, not even a full year really.  A school year.  Nine months prior to this particular summer I seemed to remember having quite a few friends in my hometown.  But when I returned from college in the big city, I didn't seem to have any.  Good thing I had those three jobs to occupy my mind.  My best friend and I stayed in touch all year using this new thing called email.  But she was staying at her school for the summer. 

As for everyone else, it was strange.  Maybe that horrid screeching sound of dial-up internet penetrated my brain and made me realize how lame a lot of them were.  Or that we just no longer had anything in common.

But then again, I didn't have much in common with my nine-month ago self.  I had switched my major.  I had cut my hair.  I had gained fifteen pounds. 

I understood much more acutely that summers were slipping away and would soon cease to mean a three month vacation and a couple of crazy jobs.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when Fourth of July weekend rolled around.  Precocious Cindy-Lou-Who and Big-Headed Baby's parents took them out of town.  I was off the schedule for the clothing store, possibly due to my extreme apathy over the new line of "cami’s."  Or maybe because I told someone that they could go to a different store and get the same outfit for less money.  And I even got time off from the all-important job of handing out coupons while watching Martha Stewart make a pretend bed in her pre-incarceration days.

I remember that I went into Pittsburgh to watch the fireworks.  As I stood with my head tilted toward the sky, oohing and aahing, I thought about my three jobs.  I thought about returning to school in the fall.  I thought about how fast my brother went through college and how I would be next to go out in the real world. 

I didn’t know what I wanted to do; what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I didn’t know if someday I would lose touch with my college friends the same way I had with my high school friends.

But I did know that my fingers were sticky from eating a funnel cake.  My entire body was sticky from the summer humidity that came off the three rivers.  As I stood in that moment, I knew nothing would be the same.  But for a couple minutes I could stand and watch a display of lights illuminate more than just the city of my past.  They illuminated my future and the freedom of the unknown.