Middle Gray Or: The Usual

by Liz Galvao

I have nightmares from time to time that I’m sent back to high school. I had one yesterday morning. I was sitting in a classroom next to a friend of mine. “I can’t believe I’m back in high school,” I said to her. “I’d rather go back to college before I went back to high school.”

I woke up, shook off my sleepiness, and looked at the quote-a-day calendar on my nightstand. “Never economize on luxuries.” –Angela Thirkell. August 31st, 2009. At this time a year ago I was frantically trying to move into my apartment at school, hugging and how-was-your-summering twenty times a day. I went downstairs for some coffee and a bagel. My mom greeted me, “How’s the job search?” I grunted, “The usual.” She then told me that I should try substitute teaching at the high school where she works. “I know it’s an early start, and it’s not exactly what you want to do, but it would be some money coming in.” I told her I’d think about it. I’m not in the habit of making decisions before coffee.

Lately I’ve been Googling myself more than I’d care to admit, wondering what prospective employers might see. Not much comes up that’s not already on my resume, except for a couple thousand unrelated hits generated by my Portuguese last name. Apparently there’s another Elizabeth Galvao in Brazil. I found her LinkedIn profile. She hasn’t been putting off setting one up forever because she’s too lazy to fill out forms. She attended the Universidade de São Paulo and probably majored in something marketable and relevant. She probably looks like Gisele and zips around in a fabulous little European car and knows how to wear a scarf more than two ways. And she has a job in the capital markets industry, which sounds very Important and Successful. She would probably never end up with a four-year-old laptop whose keys are sticky and clack as loudly as an old typewriter because she spilled overpriced juice on them. Clearly, she is winning.

Willa originally considered naming this blog “What Do You Do?” because of the power of that question over our identities and feelings of self-worth. I was very proud to identify myself as a student at Vassar College. It was something I’d worked very hard to be, and I was pretty good at it. Now I’m just unemployed. I feel like the middle gray card we used to calibrate our light meters when I took photography in high school. Undefined.

I started taking photos in high school for the same reason I started writing crappy poetry and playing the guitar and making my own clothes: because this town bored me to death and I had to find ways to occupy myself while plotting my escape. Now that I’m back here to live indefinitely, it is quite a bit like I’m back in high school. Yet it’s not exactly the nightmare I once envisioned. I’m still plotting my escape to the big city, but I’m finding ways to occupy myself. For four years, I traded hobbies for classes that interested me and friends who were never short on conversation. It was a good trade, one I’d gladly make twice, but I’m happy to be writing and making use of Photoshop again. I’m happy to be able to go see movies in the theater and exhibits in New York, even if I can’t really afford it. At Vassar I rarely found the time to do any of those things.

So, yes, it’s now September, my scary deadline, and I’m still unemployed. But that’s not all there is to me. I’m slowly coloring in the middle gray. Part of that is accepting that I might be here for a while. I’m going to apply to work as a substitute teacher tomorrow. I’d probably get some good anecdotes out of it, and I need a new laptop if I’m going to keep writing at this pace. I read somewhere that one should never economize on luxuries.