Suddenly, as thunder rolls, a great leap southward

IN TRANSITION #21

By Benjamin Toff | December 18, 2005
Read it on Boston.com

The world is falling apart outside; ice is forming at the base of my window; the six-month mark since my college commencement has come and gone already. (Who knew there could be thunder during a snowstorm?)

I find the stillness inside my work cubicle unsettling -- and the ferocity outside remote. The humid pomp and circumstance of June has never felt more distant. Disappointment has replaced the initial post-grad period of awkward expectancy, and that, too, has given way to a general malaise. It's dark before 5, but I rarely notice the sunshine anyway.

My friends and I distract ourselves by reminiscing about our good ol' college days. To our horror, we've become people who do that. What about the good ol' shapeless days just after college where you felt like nothing in your life was going anywhere and weren't quite sure what you spent the last four years preparing for? Why doesn't anyone talk fondly of those years?

When I began this series in August, I was undergoing more life adjustments than I could process. Every day it seemed a new reality of post-college life set in. So many changes and discoveries -- the puberty of professional life.

But unlike puberty, it's been more difficult to figure out exactly what's so exciting about being grown up. Sure, life since college has been a series of firsts -- a first apartment, a first office job, a first coworker's holiday party. But invariably these firsts have let me down.

The edgy uncertainty that marked the frantic weeks directly after the diploma ceremony has morphed, in half a year, into complacency. I anticipate my alarm clock -- I reach for the snooze button before it even goes off. I've developed a standard list of items for my supermarket shopping list. And I hardly ever waste away any hours fretting about what I'm doing with my life. Angst over choosing a life path seems so . . . college.

The most oft-repeated feedback I've received on this series is that the disorienting feeling of post-graduation letdown never fully goes away. It may dull over time, but the sensation of the bottom having fallen out stays with you.

''You have to get past realizing that you're blind and basically throw yourself headfirst in one direction or another," a friend who graduated a couple years ahead of me told me. He was a fantastic actor who had taken a job in investment banking. ''You'll inevitably hit a wall since you don't have a clue where you're heading. You'll fall down. Get hurt. But then pick yourself up, pick another direction, and get going again."

Here I go. I got a phone call. A new (dream) job offer: I'm becoming an assistant and researcher to a columnist at The New York Times. So much for the post-college letdown.

Suddenly I'm giving notice to my employers (a new first), subletting my room (yet another), and packing up books that I'm pretty sure I haven't touched since I unpacked back in September.

I suppose looking back on this period, it will come to fit inside some broader narrative with a trajectory and a plot. (I can see it now: a suspenseful gap for dramatic effect.) It might even be neat and organized -- something akin to a ninth semester of college; a coda. Introduction to Life. Syllabus: TBA.

One thing college did teach me? How to cram. Good thing, too; my final exam (or midterm?) is daunting: Say goodbye to Boston in a week.

Benjamin Toff lives in Somerville, briefly. Reach him at benjamin.toff@gmail.com.