Hannah Metry
When I graduated in December, I spent months preparing myself for The Wait. The post-commencement, pre-big-kid-job hunkering down that every graduate earns after 16 years of education. I tried to give myself a couple of weeks to just CHILL before jumping into my next thing, waiting for my teaching license to get processed so I could start work. I had intentions of traveling, or doing a big project, or drastically expanding my writing output. Instead, I spent most of the time watching Disney+ and trying not to worry about finding an apartment for June. One step at a time, Hannah. Once I had my license in hand, I picked up a gig as a long-term substitute for a teaching colleague and thought, ok, this buys me a few weeks. I put in an application for a job I was wholly unqualified for …and did some more waiting.
And then news started coming in about this virus with a weird name.
And then my plans for substitute teaching were cut short because all the schools closed.
And then the job I applied for realized I really wasn’t qualified and found someone else. No big surprise.
And I kept waiting, wishing I hadn’t burned through Disney+ so quickly.
If only I had known.
I know none of you have met my parents, but this whole situation can pretty solidly be summed up by the old adage, “if you met my parents, you’d understand.” I come from a long line of Midwestern workaholics, which means that three days of relative nothingness is about my limit before I start to go stir-crazy. The initial break immediately following graduation was enough chill time to last me a whole year. But what was supposed to turn into a couple of weeks turned into a couple of months. I can’t work in my field of study, because all the schools are closed, although I can still put in applications for teaching positions that are opening in the fall. And I, like everyone else, was left scrambling to figure out how to live in a world where everything has gone topsy-turvy but there’s also business as usual to do.
So, I did what any cash-strapped Millennial born and bred of the gig economy and with more than one global financial catastrophe under my belt would do…I got a job delivering pizzas. If there’s another thing I learned from my parents, it’s the fundamental idea that I’m not above any job, as long as there’s a job out there that needs doing. People need pizza? I can do pizza. In fact, I really like pizza. So, out I go, with my baseball cap firmly on my head and an already-beat up pair of sneakers on my feet. But before I start driving, I turn on the radio, and listen to the song that’s gotten generations before me through many a crisis of their own. Ooh child, things are gonna get easier…
Hannah Metry is a recent graduate of UW-Eau Claire’s English Education program. In her now-perpetual free time she can be found reading, listening to music, and going on long walks around the Third Ward…sometimes all at once. Her two biggest goals in life are to travel the world and get a dog, although not necessarily in that order.