WAYWARD

They drink beer, they are part of local governement and they are symbol of good luck for their family: they are Muxes, homosexuals of the “pueblo oaxacaqueno de Juchitan”.

     I didn’t get the job. Through a connection that I never saw coming, I got an interview at a company that in many ways is the corporate holy grail. I immediately got my shit together, turning my inner-stoner off for the longest period since the exodus from my college campus, spending all day researching facts and figures to bring out during the interview. For days, I was so nervous I could barely eat, undoubtedly exacerbated by the completely inexplicable disappearance of my constant munchies.  The day of my two hour and 15 minute interview, my blood vessels were so restricted that I’m sure my handshake felt like gripping death. Yet I smiled, I made them laugh, subtle hints were dropped and I was filled with optimism.

     But I didn’t get the job. And that’s fine. It was an opportunity that I never expected so I never had expectations. Other people did, however. As word spread around my family and close friends, I received endless words of encouragement and reassurance. “I’m sure you’ll get it”. “You’re a perfect fit for them”. “I have a really good feeling about this”. These words echoed in my head over and over, placing a pearl of hope inside of my clammy exterior. I tempered the growth of that kernel, however, making sure to not let myself get ahead of the here and now.

     And then I didn’t get the job. The echoes of encouragement suddenly turned to self-doubt. If everyone who knows me intimately is so assured in my ability and promise yet I cannot even get a part-time catering job, let alone one that actually takes into account my ability and promise, what am I to think of myself? It is as if I have let down those who have an invested interest in me, that I cannot translate my “potential” into the language that resume-bombarded employers understand. I want so badly to believe things will work out neatly, my inner 90s child having fully ingested the maxims of an approach to education now made defunct by the ebbing tides of economic prosperity. 

     A friend recently referred to life after graduating from college as a “second adolescence”. I’m afraid it may still be a while before my second first kiss.