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Things Girls Do After Graduation: Existential Crisis

by Apr 19, 2017
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This is a recurring PGP series. Catch up with all installments of Things Girls Do After Graduation by visiting the archive. If you’re having trouble keeping up with the characters, take a look at the character map.

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Things Girls Do After Graduation: Existential Crisis

The Nordstrom bags hit the kitchen island while Sperry pawed at her leggings in a desperate attempt to get fed. One scoop, then another for good measure before she walked into her bedroom and fell face first into her down comforter without making any effort to stop her fall.

“Ughhhhhhh,” she groaned. “Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

She sat motionless for what seemed like hours but, in reality, was all of five minutes. With her mind racing and her stomach bloated from the french fries she picked up from Nordstrom Bistro (only to eat them during her Uber ride home), she made her way into the bathroom to change and take the other half of the Xanax that rested on the sink’s ledge.

The only noise echoing throughout their apartment was her occasional grunt of agony and Sperry’s paws clamoring on the hardwood floors. Her iPhone alarm broke the intense silence and signaled two things – it was 4 o’clock, and it was time to take her birth control.

After ending the alarm, she checked her phone to see if Todd had reached out.

Nothing.

She checked her email to see if perhaps he had decided an apology would be better suited in long form.

Nothing.

She again opened her texts and deleted the conversation she had with her old boss earlier that morning about quitting at Lululemon. “Out of sight,” she thought. “Out of mind.”

It felt as though she needed to pace around her apartment for hours on end in order to come up with a resolution to the argument that plagued her and Todd, but she couldn’t bring herself to do much more than stare at her ceiling from the comfort of her bed. The weight of the argument that ensued over lunch was debilitating when coupled with the Xanax and she imagined herself sitting on a cloud wondering what could have been.

She thought about her college boyfriend and why he didn’t work out. She wondered if she should have never taken the internship that summer when they broke up. She pondered why she didn’t move to California when she was offered the social media manager position just out of college. She considered whether or not she should’ve waded in the dating pool just a bit longer rather than becoming official on Valentine’s Day with the first person she matched with. She ran through all the bachelorette parties and weddings she’d attended over the last two years only to come up with the thought of, “Where did it all go wrong?”

With Sperry sitting beside her bed looking up with honest eyes, she looked down and said, “At least I have you.” She reached her hand down and began rubbing Sperry’s head only for her shoulder to ache causing her to flip back over onto the bed.

She thought about Todd. She wondered why he felt so hesitant to propose. Why his friends felt more comfortable taking the leap compared to him. Why after so many attempts to tell him what she wanted, he seemed to be too stubborn to actually put her plan into action. She looked at herself at the age of 26 – jobless, in a seemingly dead-end relationship, staring at the possibility of being single forever while everyone else gets married before the age of 30.

Her face buried deep into her pillow, she let out a muffled “FUCK!” that caused Sperry to skid out of the room. Her thoughts transitioned from being an innocent recap of her life to being a vile critique of her life. “Am I crazy for trying to force Todd into something he clearly doesn’t want?” she wondered. “Do I want to spend the rest of my life with someone who’s clearly being pushed in a direction he doesn’t want to go in?” Yes, she wondered, but deep down she knew the answers. She had acted crazy towards him and the realization of her deepest fear washed over her – the issues at hand had nothing to do with Todd but everything to do with her.

Todd, in her mind, hadn’t done anything wrong besides remain stagnant. She, on the other hand, knew her attempts to manipulate every situation they’d encountered together since moving in together had caused a tug-of-war that was more likely to end in an argument than it was to end in a proposal.

Her phone rested on “Do Not Disturb” face down on the pillow next to her. The issue with “Do Not Disturb” is that while, yes, you don’t receive vibrations or notifications, you still sit wondering if anyone made any attempts to contact you since you cut off your communication with the world. And while the Xanax lessened those thoughts and amplified her crisis, the thoughts still lingered.

“Todd, iMessage (3)” she read when she flipped it over.

Relief.

She pressed her index finger on the home button to open her phone and reveal her fate.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” the first message read.

“But we still need to talk about all of this,” the second message continued.

“I’ll be home tonight around 7:30 after drinks with a client.”

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