There are many alarm clock tones that people have, and throughout my time at university I went through many, as I grew to despise each one in turn until I could not bear to listen to the opening few bars. But my most recent tone is the sound of my mother crashing the hoover into the skirting boards at 8am like Cinderella on Lucozade.
I think this sound truly confirms to me that I am no longer at university, but back at home with my newly retired parents. And whereas my father has found On Demand to pass the time, my mother has found bleach so that every morning the kitchen can be transformed into an ice-rink-cum-no-blame-no-claim environment. Assuming both ankles are not at a ninety degree angle, I am told I must accompany my mother on her monthly pilgrimage to Dunelm Mill where she buys absolutely nothing yet still insists on pushing around a large shopping trolley while she looks at fabric.
This was not the scenario that I described to my careers officer when asked for my plans after graduation, but as I couldn’t describe anything else, this was the version that I ended up with; a kind of no-man’s land where I have got a bag of tools but can’t decide what I want to make so I’m still stuck in the workshop.
Of course this leads to many an awkward garden party to which I have been dragged along to by my parents, and where I spend the entire afternoon answering the same questions: "have you graduated? What in? What do you want to do?" And after I explain through a mouth of cocktail sausage that I am unsure of the latter, Gillian proudly sprays back, in a blizzard of Scotch egg, that her daughter has gone to Africa for a year to hug elephants. Such purpose. Such direction.
I always come away from these gatherings thinking am I the only one? Am I the only one who doesn’t have their career mapped out and a free Parker Pen with the Over Fifty Plan? But this feeling is soon allayed after the weekly gathering at the pub and only half the table having a plan that goes beyond breakfast.
But unfortunately until I have a plan that exceeds 12 hours, I know that I will be stuck at home, along with many other graduates, and attempting the balancing act of getting a job but not being forced down a career path for the sake of having a job. There is something depressing about the thought of joining the sea of black and grey in the morning rush and feeling that you’re not swimming, you’re just being swept along by the current. You don’t want to be there. You passed your finals, but you failed the most important test.
So it seems that for the time being I am stuck with my hoover alarm clock but if experience is anything to go by, I’m sure that tone will change.
Lucy Holligan
