I just asked my little brother to give the kitchen counter a quick wipe down after we finished lunch, and he asked me, "At what point does cleaning become OCD?"
Thanks.
It's been nearly a month since I donned my cap and gown and finally got my paws on my hard-earned 2:1, and I am living back at home. As I type, I'm surrounded by shopper bags filled with books, boxes of kitchen equipment and piles of bedding sets for a sad little single, at my old glossy white desk that I fell in love with aged fifteen and painted my bookcase to match. A poster of Gerard Way from the Danger Days era gazes sultrily at me, tacked the wall next to an old newspaper article from a charity concert I did in '11, just before I left for university. After living away for four years, one of those on the far side of Canada, it feels more than a little strange to be home.
As I hunt for jobs and live off my parents' generosity and the remainder of my last student loan instalment, I'm not only feeling slightly at a loss but fairly useless altogether. I'm justifying being back here by maintaining the endless cycle of laundry, running errands and cooking the family meals in between clicking across at least twenty of the open tabs on my browser to check for new job postings. And cleaning a lot, hence Little Bruv's genuinely concerned comment about OCD.
Up to half of new graduates are living at home, according to the BBC, partly due to the fact that there is more competition for graduate jobs and also the skyrocketing cost of living and renting. With a string of failed job applications behind me I joined the statistic and retreated back to North Wales; now I'm struggling to feel useful. My most fervent desire is to become financially independent, ideally owning a flat and a small dog to be responsible for. Right now I have no income, which is severely demoralising, and almost every moment not spent job-hunting feels like a waste. This triggers anxiety, panic and the occasional tearful rant at my computer screen, and is making is harder than ever to write, which I love more than anything. I'll usually only admit to these feeling in the dark of night while scrolling obsessively down Reed.co.uk and googling 'creative jobs' for the thousandth time, but I suspect I'm not the only one.
To combat these feelings, I've instated myself as my parents' housekeeper. Cleaning, tidying, laundry, going on all the food shopping trips, baking, making all the meals (and dozens of mugs of tea for my beleaguered mum) and enlisting Little Bruv to help, especially as he has no summer job yet. This is the only thing that keeps the anxiety at bay, except for when I eventually come across interesting jobs to apply for (harder than you think). In the evenings I work through a grown-up colouring book while the parents watch Corrie, and have a last look on the jobsites before bed.
The Prince's Trust says that half of unemployed young people are depressed to some extent. Why does being jobless make us feel so worthless? Perhaps it was because, growing up, many of us were told that if we worked hard enough and especially if we went to university and got a good degree, a fantastic job was lying in wait and all we had to do was secure it. The stale, traditional dream of moving up the career ladder and collecting a partner, children and nice car continued to be pushed while we were in school, and it is often only once cut adrift from the safe, warm structure of education that we realise that it's all rather more complicated than that. So some of us come home, feeling a little defeated, and fight against the social narrative that leaves them out. The one thing new graduates can depend on is that this period of paralysing purgatory will end. Or, if you can score a loan or funding - there's always a Masters...
Thanks.
It's been nearly a month since I donned my cap and gown and finally got my paws on my hard-earned 2:1, and I am living back at home. As I type, I'm surrounded by shopper bags filled with books, boxes of kitchen equipment and piles of bedding sets for a sad little single, at my old glossy white desk that I fell in love with aged fifteen and painted my bookcase to match. A poster of Gerard Way from the Danger Days era gazes sultrily at me, tacked the wall next to an old newspaper article from a charity concert I did in '11, just before I left for university. After living away for four years, one of those on the far side of Canada, it feels more than a little strange to be home.
As I hunt for jobs and live off my parents' generosity and the remainder of my last student loan instalment, I'm not only feeling slightly at a loss but fairly useless altogether. I'm justifying being back here by maintaining the endless cycle of laundry, running errands and cooking the family meals in between clicking across at least twenty of the open tabs on my browser to check for new job postings. And cleaning a lot, hence Little Bruv's genuinely concerned comment about OCD.
Up to half of new graduates are living at home, according to the BBC, partly due to the fact that there is more competition for graduate jobs and also the skyrocketing cost of living and renting. With a string of failed job applications behind me I joined the statistic and retreated back to North Wales; now I'm struggling to feel useful. My most fervent desire is to become financially independent, ideally owning a flat and a small dog to be responsible for. Right now I have no income, which is severely demoralising, and almost every moment not spent job-hunting feels like a waste. This triggers anxiety, panic and the occasional tearful rant at my computer screen, and is making is harder than ever to write, which I love more than anything. I'll usually only admit to these feeling in the dark of night while scrolling obsessively down Reed.co.uk and googling 'creative jobs' for the thousandth time, but I suspect I'm not the only one.
To combat these feelings, I've instated myself as my parents' housekeeper. Cleaning, tidying, laundry, going on all the food shopping trips, baking, making all the meals (and dozens of mugs of tea for my beleaguered mum) and enlisting Little Bruv to help, especially as he has no summer job yet. This is the only thing that keeps the anxiety at bay, except for when I eventually come across interesting jobs to apply for (harder than you think). In the evenings I work through a grown-up colouring book while the parents watch Corrie, and have a last look on the jobsites before bed.
The Prince's Trust says that half of unemployed young people are depressed to some extent. Why does being jobless make us feel so worthless? Perhaps it was because, growing up, many of us were told that if we worked hard enough and especially if we went to university and got a good degree, a fantastic job was lying in wait and all we had to do was secure it. The stale, traditional dream of moving up the career ladder and collecting a partner, children and nice car continued to be pushed while we were in school, and it is often only once cut adrift from the safe, warm structure of education that we realise that it's all rather more complicated than that. So some of us come home, feeling a little defeated, and fight against the social narrative that leaves them out. The one thing new graduates can depend on is that this period of paralysing purgatory will end. Or, if you can score a loan or funding - there's always a Masters...
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