Are You That Girl?

As my time at school comes to a close, I'm filled on a day to day basis with even more anxiety talk of my pending post-school plans. For someone who likes to have it all planned out, it turns out having a plan will only get you so far; reality, I've learned, has a mind of its own.


With the end of the semester, and my school life in general, looming, I've had a few opportunities recently to dive head first into my career "development"; getting out there in the world and preparing myself for the inevitable. In these last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to talk to some great industry professionals, alumni and leaders in my intended field and the one thing that scares me to death is something I've heard up and down, inside and out from every, single one of them. To be succesful, in our industry, you must be relocatable.

At first, this freaked me out. Mostly because, right now, at this point in my life I'm simply non-relocatable. My boyfriend made the decision to move to Philadelphia to be with me and begin his new life, and I certainly do not plan on being one half of another long distance relationship, ever again. I've championed the distance and made it out alive on the other side, but simply put that will never be the "only" option again. The problem, however, is when you say this out loud you're immediately that girl. The girl who won't think for herself, or won't do something without her boyfriend. And guess what, no one likes that girl.


After much soul searching, I've been able to see it differently. For me, being that girl is a testament in character. People's work life and relatioships are not one size fits all. Values are different, personal goals vary. In my relationship we don't keep score, but we have both made enormous sacrifices on the others' behalf. I was in Philadelphia continuing school, so he moved here. He's here now, so this is where I'll stay until he is done. If the right opportunity came along, I know a move wouldn't be out of the question, however, it'd be together.

For me, being that girl speaks to who I am, which may be different than you, or you or you. For me its knowing that my work and my personal life are two sepearte entities, two which must both be fuffilled for me to be the best, happiest verison of myself. For me, if push came to shove, I know where my sacrifices would lie.

Hopefully I'm forunate enough to find a great job locally, Lord knows I'm trying. But if not, I'm confident in my decisions, however popular or unpopular they are in the big, bad industry world.

Because if being that girl is really my biggest problem, things aren't looking so bad.