Post Graduation Plans

People always ask what I’m planning to do after graduating art school. Secretly, I have no idea. I never made a plan.

I paused for a second on the fifth floor of the Lake Street parking garage and looked out across the campus I’d spent the last few years of my life at. Tried to soak in the moment. I’m never coming back here again. I listened to Goldie Boutilier the entire drive home.

Driving down 287, I wondered if I should cut my bangs. It’s a decision I always regret, but somehow keep convincing myself is a good idea. I wondered what would happen to my career as an artist. Maybe I’d read my poetry at a coffee shop and invite the boy I like to come watch me.

Maybe I’d finally smoke that pack of French cigarettes I smuggled back from Paris. I didn’t want to pay taxes on them, so I told the man at the Dublin airport I had nothing in my suitcase, and he took my word for it. This is not my confession.

"It’s the music, I think. Music only sounds the way it’s supposed to when you’re driving."

Over the years, I fell in love with the big barren oak trees that rise in tangled clumps against the prairie landscape. I’ve always wanted to stop and photograph their silhouettes on my drive to school. But there’s something about driving that makes me never want to stop once I’ve started. Sometimes I take the long way to the grocery store just to decide, once I get there, that I don’t really feel like going in. Then I take the long way back home and order delivery instead. It’s the music, I think. Music only sounds the way it’s supposed to when you’re driving.

What if I drove to Montana? Maybe I’d never come back. Maybe I’d buy a cottage in Idaho and pretend to be someone else, someone with good taste in wine who knows how to socialize at house parties. I’d wear loose-fitting jeans and button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up. I’d have a chic bob. I’d paint sunsets in my living room instead of making collages about family trauma.

" Maybe I’d fall in love somewhere far away. Maybe I’d just end up at a Love’s in Kansas."

Back when I was 20, I convinced myself adulthood meant working miserable jobs to make money. I wish someone had told me your twenties are for being reckless. I used to fantasize about driving past work and never stopping. Maybe I’d fall in love somewhere far away. Maybe I’d just end up at a Love’s in Kansas. But I never did.

So when people ask me what my plans are after graduation, I’ll tell them I plan to cut my bangs like Goldie Boutilier, finally stop to photograph the big oak trees along the highway, wear button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and go for a long drive, maybe to Montana.