Feeling AWKWARD takes on a new role in life when you realize your adulthood is not only forced upon you at graduation – but it’s glaring directly at you in every aspect of life.
Having successfully turned my entire life upside down after I graduated this year, I knew I would be taking some risks. I realized that I was grabbing the real world by the boobs literally days after I snatched my diploma from a teacher wearing a Harry Potter-like robe.
After having worked in publishing for a month, I switched jobs to begin working public relations for a local system world. Then I moved from my coat closet of an apartment on campus to a beautiful Victorian apartment in Philadelphia’s elite Rittenhouse Square where my neighbors are nowhere to be seen and some cockroaches seem to enjoy my company. Alas, life is good.
But, it’s funny when I sit alone in an apartment I never thought I’d be able to afford and find myself starring out the window and making eye contact with my neighborh’s green eyed cat (and never the neighbors – I told you they were nowhere to be seen.)
This cat has made me want to adopt my own feline critter not because of how cute it is, but rather because of my yearning for companionship. Yes, in a mere 3 months after graduating from a college environment of being surrounded by 25,000-plus students everyday, I am becoming a cat lady of sorts.
When people visit, I forget to clean up the hair appliances all over my fire place mantle. Hair care appliances were a common sight in a college environment – but not so much now. And up until 2 weeks ago my apartment seating arrangement consisted of only a bed and two seats at a kitchen island. Most of the time family and friends alike snuggled in my huge bed as they tried to enjoy my apartment. The internet and cable are an idea of the past (I’ve been too lazy to set them up) so everyone is subjected to choose from the 10 movies I own for in-the-apartment entertainment. Then there’s the ever comfortable “what’s this?” noise when someone spots a condom wrapper in my trash can. Living alone isn’t ever living alone, is it?
The morning rolls around and I catapult out of bed at 6:20 a.m. and try to boost the curls in my hair that have suddenly appeared after 21 years of searching for them. Before August I didn’t realize that the world even existed before 8:00 a.m. The people at 6:40 a.m. are bizarre in the same way that 5 p.m. people are while rushing home. The streets are silent but everyone has a bent eyebrow about them as their 20-pound tote bags clobber against them while running to 30th Street Station. And now, I am one of them.
And of course everyday without fail I slip off the R7 train’s steps because they are about 100 feet from the easier to walk on gravel of a railway stop, and as a result of my daily fall I’ve become that girl whom the conductor laughs at AWKWARDLY and daily. The icing on the cake is when I walk around my job and the teachers see me lost in the halls (it’s only been a few weeks) and ask me bright eyed and bushy tailed, “What grade are you in?” Did I mention I work at a high school? My co-workers then call me “Karen” because my mom (named Karen) works in another department at my job and we are teased daily that the Ippolito’s are taking over the world.
My 8-hour working day and combined hour and a half of commuting has quite literally kicked my ass. My friends and boyfriend are still in college and they call me at 11:45 at night to go booze at the bar across the street and there I am passed out, mouth open while Sex and the City season 4 disk 2 (my favorite) rolls on and on into the daylight.
Don’t get me wrong, my life is an embarrassment of blessings in my opinion. I just find it ironic that the older I am getting the more AWKWARD my experiences have become and how I simply must roll with it. Oh, and the jokes get even funnier when I refuse to walk into my neighborhood bank because I had trouble writing a check and asked for their help and they blankly looked at me. I am 22 years old and only started writing checks now because I only believed in cash until I was forced to otherwise.
I wonder if I’ll have to write a check to adopt a cat?
~Gia Ippolito
gippolito0686@gmail.com
Philadelphia, PA
