Since my last post, I have finished the second draft of werewolf story and visited a bunch of friends I haven’t seen in a long time. I have also consumed a bunch of media that made me cry, including about 30 seconds ago, so I’m feeling sappy. I’m going to write a real post soon (and I’m going to try to do that more regularly), but right now I am just feeling happy about my place in the world. My future is almost comically uncertain, but I know what I love to do and I’m doing it, and more importantly, I know and care about a lot of super excellent human beings, and they care about me back.

Next week, I’m going to be volunteering at an environmental day camp for kids, and I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be A) the only staff member neither high school aged nor parent aged and B) the only staff member not affiliated with one of the religious institutions in charge of the camp (it’s an interfaith program), so it might be a bit of an interesting experience. I’m excited about it, though, because in the program I’ve been provided with, each day will use a narrative as a springboard for positive action and change for kids. “Narratives as springboards for positive action and change for kids” might as well be tattooed across my face, because that’s all anyone needs to know about my interests and passions. Though I doubt this particular camp will crack the future code for me, I am hoping to get some ideas for that looming question: what can I do in addition to writing? Which, yes, is very much a financial question, but hopefully also something else. I have to believe there’s something out there that will let me help people and will maybe also have health insurance attached to it. While still leaving me really large amounts of time to write, because that is and always will be my real job, despite the fact that no one’s paying me for it.

Okay, so I’ve given myself a pretty tough future code to crack. But as I mentioned to some of my friends while I was visiting them, writing is kind of recession-proof, insofar as it was a bad financial decision before the recession, too.

In any case. Post-graduation/post-any-life-change has usually been a cue for me to totally freak out, but I guess I must really be getting older and wiser, because while I have had a few minor meltdowns, I am happy. During the last summer-after-graduation (the Cursed Summer of 2011), this was not something I could say. Two of the friends I visited this past week hadn’t seen me since the kickoff of that season of the damned, and I know it wasn’t only awful for me. (I think it may actually be illegal to be happy right after finishing undergrad.) But now: damn, my friends are awesome. Have any of us cracked the code completely? Of course not. We’re millennials. The code that’s been handed down to us isn’t so much encrypted as it is total gibberish. But we are wonderful. Absolutely hilarious and clever and supportive and even sometimes happy. And we rejoice in each other’s happiness, too. Happiness, like anything else, waxes and wanes, but I’ve learned now to trust in its return.

I am grateful for my happiness and grateful for the happiness of my friends. And if anyone out there is unhappy and finding it hard to trust in happiness’ return, I can trust in it for you tonight. I’m a 25-year-old writer who has a no-benefits part-time job, an anxiety disorder and a newfound autoimmune disease, and a head full of dysfunctional made-up teenagers. My only life plan right now is literally to live in the middle of the woods for a few months, and I just received notice that I’m halfway through my student loan grace period. I may not have altogether much to extend to the world at large right at this moment. But I can share my gratitude, and my faith in people, and my joy.