“Liz, we are no longer
supporting you. You have to move out and
get a job. You can not live in this
house forever.”
I looked up in shock at my
parents. “Wait what?! You said I had until I graduated, but I am in
the middle of my sophomore year!”
“Yes, however, you have
showed such adaptability towards college and we now have your sister’s wedding
to plan also. So the timeline has moved
up a bit.”
“A bit?! How about a lot?! It is SO unfair that you are just dropping
this bomb on me! Besides, Sara has been
saving for this for the past for years!
Can’t you help me out any?” I
turned from my mom to my dad, a horrorstruck look on my face.
They looked at each other,
sadness in their eyes. “We can support
you until you get a job and start making money yourself. But as soon as you start getting your
paychecks, we won’t give you any more money.
How about that?”
“Fine, whatever. Y’all always liked Sara more anyway,” I
grumbled as I walked out of the living room.
Stunned by the massive
bombshell I had just been given by my parents, I went into my room, unsure of
what to do. I stared at my ceiling in
shock for about the next 30 minutes.
Panic raced through my mind like the cars zipping past at the Indy 500. I had no idea what I was going to do. But I got my stuff together and started to
make a list of everything I needed to establish.
Most importantly was a
job. Second was a place to live. While we lived in a college town, there were
still plenty of recently graduated people, many of which I knew. I could talk to them about the different
places to live and what my best options were.
As I started to make the list
and started to plan of what my next steps were going to be, my mind stopped
racing and started to put things back into order.
Over the next few days, I
messaged all of my friends about potential apartments and then sent my resume
to as many places as I possibly could. My
future seemed like someone had tossed everything into the air, and I was just
waiting for it to land so I could put everything together again.
Soon enough, I got a job at a
bagel place and found an apartment where I could live with one of my
friends. The nice part about the job was
that I could work early in the morning and then be able to take my classes
during the day and then do homework at night.
A little while later, after I
had finally gotten a routine down, I realized how much I had been able to
accomplish in such a short period of time.
“Maybe my parents were right,” I said to myself one day as I got ready
for work, “I can handle just about anything that gets thrown at me.”
Author's Note: I wrote this story based on the first half of the story The Dirty Shepherdess. I read the story, and I was just inspired to take the and change it so it was more fitting for this day and age. I also wanted to change the setting a little so that is was more appropriate towards our age group, i.e. college age people.
Meghan, I really liked your story. Being a senior in college and facing financial independence soon, I found your story to be really relate-able. I thought you used really good language and your story was easy and interesting to read. I would have loved to have a little more background into the story that you based it off of because I have never heard of/read it, so I was curious to know how your story was similar and different. Great job!
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