Middleness is a blog dedicated to all us post-grad, pre-life middlers still trying to make something of ourselves, whoever that self is, whatever that something might be. Posts will center around general career and life struggle (loans, relationships, the works), creative pastimes, and whatever else you do to keep away drowning from lack of directional oxygen. If you have a career or a family — you are disqualified from contributing to Middleness. Otherwise, feel free to email Paul and Susan (your faithful editors) if you wish to join.
middleness@gmail.com
No, this isn’t the most original state known to man. From The Graduate onward, the plight of the college graduate has always been filled with adventures confusing and mundane, almost always fraught with adult misadventure and back-of-the-bus WTF moments. In this faltering economy, with more and more of us absorbing a liberal arts education with no real money at the end of the university road — perhaps it’s a more critical state. Perhaps not. But either way, gathering as many voices as we can on this subject can only serve as always-needed-support.
Below are tidbits written by the editors: our own introduction to the condition.
From Paul (Creator, Co-Editor):
Freedom is annoying. You leave high school itching for that independent experience, only to find that it ultimately means you have to pay for your own shit. (Hello, college loans). And just when you step out the door of that money-sucker you find this: The jump from school to life is a cluster-f’ of open roads. Sans grad school, a business major, or a baby (all with similar tabs), the majority of us liberal arts B.A.-ers find ourselves dazed and confused – taking glossy unpaid internships, coffee-shop posts, living in our parents basement and praying for some sort of big, lucrative break into a non-“Office Space” job (or the strength to polish the bottom rung until you can sneak onto the one above).
I don’t think I’m alone in this despite, somehow, hitting all the post-grad stereotypes in a matter of months. I trekked out for big city life (Hollywood, baby!) only to find that people only loved me if I worked for free (internships, thy name is slavery). I took a job at Starbucks to pay the bills, had a half-assed brush with fame (Kato Kaelin, thy name is just really off-putting). Suffered with the chorus of those struggling through a long distance relationship with no guidebook (there must be one out there), started drinking straight whisky (half poverty-inspired, half “Mad Men”-inspired). Saw my bank account and emotional storage drain, realized that I had to choose between a melodramatic life as a drunk, scruffy, broke, perpetual up-and-comer in LA or give up that lofty dream to live a monetarily-free life in my parents basement while I plotted my next move.
Four months there, and I never shook the feeling of having put my shoes on the wrong feet. Now I begin again, again, in my former college town — trying to trick myself into being productive by planting myself in a formerly productive place. We’ll see what happens.
This is not listlessness, nor ennui – but the inability to define such murk.
I call this condition “Middleness.”
Welcome.
From Susan (Co-Editor)
I joined this blog by accident. An occasional blogger myself, I enjoy perusing my friends’ to see what they’re up to. When Paul started Middleness, my curiosity spiked. At the time, I was living in London, doing the cliché things that 22-year-olds do when they’ve finished their degrees. I danced all night to techno Euro-trash in the West End and rode the night bus home alone with rowdy, drunk Russians. I kissed a guy in Berlin whose name I cannot remember, only that he was from New Zealand and his accent reminded me of Heath Ledger. I met up with old friends in Paris and together we made the pilgrimage to Jim Morrison’s grave, although at the time I hardly knew who The Doors were. Sure, I was having fun, but my purpose for being there — “finding myself,” whatever the hell that means — never really came to fruition.
And so that brings us to today. I never intended to became a part of the Middleness demographic, but, just like nearly everyone else, it just happened. One morning I woke up and realized I didn’t have any plans for, well, ever. I posted a comment on Paul’s then-dormant blog, joking that I had joined him in this search for… something, and he invited me to contribute. But what am I looking for? And will I ever find it? I remarked to my mom that suddenly my life had become painfully lame. She replied that it would continue to be so until I “get a life,” which in her definition includes a career and a family — two qualities that disqualify a person from contributing to Middleness. So I guess that’s what I’m in the process of doing. Finding a life, just like everyone else. This is no hero’s journey, where the process of discovery is more important than the conclusion. Living in my parent’s basement (again, my life has become one never-ending cliché) is not leading to many exciting revelations or prospects. Hello, post-college Life.
Middleness is a way to both commiserate and celebrate this time. This isn’t depressing, and while the present may seem oppressingly banal, I don’t believe anyone contributing to this blog will stay in this wandering state for very long. Eventually we figure it out, and even if we don’t, we move on. So while we’re doing that, why not capture this cultural zeitgeist? That’s a heck of a lot better than avoiding your high school math teacher in the grocery store for fear of answering the unavoidable “what are you doing now?” Let’s laugh about moving back into a bedroom that is a time capsule to 2005, take solace in one another’s failures. err hourly-wage jobs, and use this outlet as a creative escape before the feeling of “middleness” morphs into ennui. I’m excited about the possibilities; I hope you are, too.
