Dear Diary, I'm Finding Myself

Finding Purpose

“Thank you for your time, Miss Hughes. We’ll let you know about our decision in ten working days,” my interviewer informs me, before I leave the office. The fourth one in a single day. No one has told me if I got the internship yet. So for now, I’m basically jobless.

I didn’t realize they’d all take so long to respond. What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I can’t just sit in our studio all day long. Oh wait, I can’t even sit because we don’t have chairs yet. Maybe I should ask around cafés if they need any help for the next couple of weeks.

I have all the time on my hands. And I could use the money anyway. I don’t know what my schedule is going to be like, but I’m sure I’ll manage somehow. I just hope I get an internship at all.

Hunter texts me on the train ride home. He wants to know how I did at my interviews. I sigh before typing back that I’ll find out in a span of two weeks. And that’s considering the fact that I wasn’t the only student who they interviewed.

At Fox, there were at least fifty of us. I wouldn’t know that if I didn’t see a list of names on the interviewer’s desk, mine amongst them. I’m pretty sure they asked everyone the same questions. There’s no way you can personalize an interview with that many students.

I’m sure you’ll get in somewhere. They’ll see your potential. You got a scholarship for writing after all, Hunter tries to reassure me. I type back a short response, because I’m not really feeling his long-distance pep talk at the moment. I can only hope that I did good enough somewhere.

I get hired at a café near the building we live in. I literally stop by on the way home and they tell me I can begin right away. I’ve never worked as a waitress before, but they assure me they’ll teach me everything.

It’s a nice little café by the train station and when I tell Hunter about it, he’s stunned at first. He literally checks my forehead to see if I have a fever. I don’t. “Baby, I thought you had interviews to get an internship, not to serve coffee!” he protests as he can’t get over the confusion.

I shrug, folding the rest of my shirts to put them in our newly standing closet. I didn’t have the energy to do it the day before yesterday, because I was exhausted after we finally managed to put it together. And I also couldn’t do it yesterday, because we’ve spent the whole day in New York.

“I did have interviews for an internship, but as I didn’t get any responses right away, I had to find a temporary solution. I have some time to spare and we’re not exactly picking money up from trees,” I explain, almost getting a little impatient.

He’s about to say something, when he gets interrupted by a familiar sound. He turns around at the same time as I gasp, then curse under the same breath. I’m cooking pasta for dinner and the boiling water has just burst all over the stove.

My boyfriend is quicker than I am. He’s already lifting the pot off the stove by the time I start turning off the heat. As I stare at the mess my pasta has made, I groan. Great. I’ll have a bunch of cleaning to do before I go to bed.

I tell him to put the pot back on the stove, lowering the heat, so the pasta is only slightly simmering now. It won’t be long until it’s cooked anyway. As I stand beside it, stirring it a little, so it doesn’t stick to the bottom, Hunter wraps his arms around me from the back.

I lean my head against his shoulder, letting out a soft sigh. “Look, I’m not judging you or anything. You just took me by surprise. If you wanted, you could pick up trash to earn some money and I’d still be proud of you,” he mumbles into my ear.

I can’t help but smile at those words. I turn my head slightly, so I can meet his gaze. “There’s nothing wrong with picking up trash,” I remind him. It’s an honorable job and I respect every person who’s doing it. He shakes his head in a more serious way now.

“Of course not. Heroes wear fluorescent capes,” he murmurs in response, making me smile against his lips just as he presses them against mine.

We deal with the pasta mess after dinner, then shower together. I have to be at the café at seven and Hunter leaves at six, so we have to go to bed early. I’ll wake up with him, so I can prepare myself in peace. I’m not sure how this is going to look like, but I’m shitting my pants about it.

As he leaves the next morning, I’m basically hyperventilating. He tries to calm me down, but he can’t even get me to stay in one place for longer than two seconds. I keep trying to clean something. He basically has to pin me against the wall and kiss the life out of me to stop my panicking.

Once he pulls away, he lifts my chin and stares at me with a serious gaze. “I have to go now. You kick ass today. Or serve the best coffee people have ever seen. Okay?” he instructs me, and I can’t do anything but nod in response. “Good. Love you,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss on my forehead.

“Love you too,” I reply a moment later, still completely smitten by what he just did. It’s a shame he has to leave right now. I have other ideas about what we could be doing right now.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details about my latest job, but it’s … interesting. There are quite a few customers, but luckily not as many as there are in Starbucks. It’s a good thing I didn’t ask if they needed help there.

I get to make the basic types of coffee, my coworkers are all very friendly and let me learn. By the end of my shift, I start getting the hang of it and I even get praised for my effort. I hope that’s not just a nice way of saying, ‘you suck at this’.

Also, I hope that’s not the response I’ll be getting from my internship interviews. Thank you for your effort, but we have to inform you that you weren’t chosen for the spot. Why am I doing this to myself? I can’t go through what I went with those college letters again.

Yeah, but doing an internship like that could open a lot of doors for me. Who knows, maybe they’d even consider hiring me after I finish college. But I’m not sure I’d be able to move to New York. It’s so far away from my family.

I talk to my mom after I get home from my shift, and she’s not exactly thrilled to hear I’m working as a waitress. “Perrie, sweetie, I thought you wanted to write. Why are you serving coffee?” she wants to know.

After letting out a long sigh, I tell her the same thing I told Hunter and she finally leaves me be. Is it so bad that I want to be independent? My parents had to finance me for years and now they want to complain, because I found myself a job? I’m not sure it works this way.

About my interviews, I get the first response before I even have my first class at NYU. It’s a couple of days before Labor day when I get an email. It’s from the Forward. Oh, this is the one I really liked. I could work from home too, but I don’t really know much about Jews. Which is the paper’s audience.

The moment I read the email through, I realize this will be exactly like waiting for all my college letters. I didn’t get the internship. Well, it’s probably for the best. How would I write for American Jews if I don’t know much about them?

Hunter and I spend the weekend roaming Stamford, because we haven’t exactly had the time to do that just yet. We’ve only been to the supermarket and back, and we’ve shopped for furniture. That’s about it from our perspective of the city. Besides our regular visits to the trains station.

I’m starting college on Monday, and I’m a little nervous about it. I’ve waited for this day for so long, and now that it’s finally coming, I don’t know what to do. We got lost during our one day trip to New York about five times. And I’ll be alone there, every day. Commuting back and forth.

I know staying at campus would be much easier, but then, I wouldn’t be able to spend every day with Hunter. That’s what truly weighed the decision towards getting an apartment together. Well, a studio.

Anyway, by the time Monday comes, I’m already a mess. I spend an hour prepping myself the night before. Hunter probably wants to carry me to bed already, but he’s incredibly patient with me. I’m still not sure how I deserve this guy, really.

Then, I toss and turn for the whole night, probably making him lose sleep too. He doesn’t say anything in the morning, but I can see the bags under his eyes and I feel incredibly guilty. Which is why I bake us some eggs for breakfast. And make coffee.

We both have to leave at the same time, and as we’re walking towards the train station together, he holds my hand. Like he knows I need to be comforted. However, nothing prepares me for the moment I have to kiss him goodbye as we get ready to board our separate trains.

I’m sure he sees the panic in my eyes, because he cups my face and offers me the friendliest smile he can come up with. “Listen to me, baby. You’ve got this. Today is the beginning of a new chapter in your life and you’re going to rock it. Trust me,” he lets me know.

We don’t have much time for this. Five minutes, to be exact. I place my hands over his, nodding in panic. Okay, Perrie, calm down. He’s right. Don’t make such a big deal about this, it’s just college.

I take a deep breath, then slowly exhale. In the next moment, I find myself nodding. “Thank you. You’re the best boyfriend in the world,” I murmur in response.

He smirks, kissing me once again, before turning me around and directing me towards my train. But not before saying: “I know.”