Today, I got the call from Human Resources that I got the job I interviewed for yesterday.

No, that’s not right. First I got two missed calls from a number I thought might be work and then I realized that they couldn’t leave a voicemail because I haven’t emptied my voice mailbox in three weeks in an effort to dissuade my dad from leaving them all the time because I find them antiquated and inefficient (even though I love hearing his voice and usually embrace the antiquated and inefficient and really I’m probably just too fucking lazy). 

So I called HR and spoke to the perpetually jubilant HR coordinator (have you ever met one that wasn’t?) and said “thank you thank you!” and then I deleted all my voicemail and called my dad to tell him the news. And then I made my bed and felt slightly less lazy, even though my sink is full of glasses, and my kitchen table is littered with unopened mail.

Here is the truth - the job is a step down, in some ways, but really it’s more like a step to the side, and the money’s not as good, but only slightly. It’s completely different from anything I’ve done before, but there’s more room to grow and new people to meet and so much to learn and I’m terrified and excited and ready. (I don’t know about being ready.) 

I cleaned up the rest of my apartment, or I sort of put things away. I scrutinized my body in the mirror for two minutes and then I got on with it. I hung my dresses on hangers and jewelry on hooks. I folded the towels and piled them in the bathroom. I wiped down the countertop and stuffed my hand in a box of wheat thins and drank cheap white wine from the bottle standing in front of the fridge with the door open in a pair cutoff shorts with the pockets hanging out the bottom, Dead or Alive blasting on my speakers. You spin me right round, baby, right round. 

There’s a boy in Arizona who is driving to New York tomorrow and I feel like important things are happening right now for everyone I know. Sometimes it seems like the threat of permanence is chasing us and all we can do is keep moving to keep from going crazy or turning into our parents. We’re all so fucking young and trying so terribly hard to make the right decisions and every night we console each other and try to find the words that will reassure and calm. It will all turn out alright, we say, although we have no idea if that’s true. We say it because it has to be. It has to be.