About Cheeks, pt.1

For the first time in my life, I am having to create and define my identity outside that of a student.  This is hard to do, especially after spending 17 years in school.  My blogger identity is Cheeks, which is a nickname that my boyfriend gave me early on in our relationship.  I am a Class of 2009 college grad, and have been out of school for almost 10 months now.  I graduated college without a job, and 10 months later, I am still unemployed.  The past few years have been rough, but the past year has been especially tough on me and my family, but I will write more about that later.

I graduated from a top liberal arts college in the midwest and to be honest, college sucked.  The university iteself was fine, and the academic were great, in fact, I loved going to class and learning, but the "college experience" that I expected was just not there at all.  I am not from the midwest, so attending college in a state 20 hours away from my boyfriend, family, and everything that was familiar, and being in an environment where over 90% of the student body was from that state and lived just a couple hours away was awful.  At my college, most of the students were from either from the suburbs of Chicago, or weirdly small towns in Illinois with populations under 700 people.  The midwest is just *different* from life in and around New York, which is what I am used to.  With my experience, I found that my fellow classmates were sheltered, close-minded, unusually religious (and this is coming from someone that grew up in a very Christian home), and many were just like clones of each other.  My college really lacked diversity - not just racial diversity, but socioeconomic diversity, geographical diversity, and the most important aspect: diversity of ideas.  Most of the students at my school grew up in similar households, attended the same high schools, shared the same beliefs, and were not aware of the problems/challenges that I faced as an out of state student, let alone the struggles that many people share on a daily basis. 

So I spent four years alone, as an outsider in an unfamiliar territory, seeking counseling from my boyfriend, deadlocked in a fight with my family who refused to let me transfer schools or even listen to the legitimate reasons I should have been able to transfer (more about them and why that went on to come), and just plain miserable.  I mistakenly thought that all of my problems would be over once school was over and I moved back to my hometown.  I couldn't have been further from reality.  The reality is that things have just gotten worse since school was over.  Needless to say, I have been in and out of depression since I started college in 2005 and I am trying to pull myself out of it now.  I try to be self-aware and "check" my actions, but that can be hard when you're trudging through life depressed.  I recently went through a situation with my boyfriend, who has been there for me through everything, which caused me to take a serious look at the bad traits I had acquired, the constant bad attitude that I had, and the person that I had let myself become.  So after that, and seeing how badly I had treated him and everyone else around me and realizing what was at stake, I am making a conscious effort to overcome my explosive anger and depressed mentality so that I can finally move past the bad experience and start the rest of my life.  Hopefully this blog will be part of that healing process.

Well that was a lot more than just background info about me, but it kind of explains where I am coming from most recently, and the position that I am currently in.  I am going to close on that note, because I am waiting for my boyfriend to come over so we can bake a cake for my grandpa. 

More later.