All it took was one fight between my mom and I that brought me straight to Craigslist for a new job in the city. One of my sorority sister alums had recently posted that she was looking for a couple of roommates in her apartment, and two weeks of job interviews and lease signings was all that was required until I was moving in. I gave myself everything I wanted, and I had the freedom that I was missing from living with friends for the majority of college. A steady job waitressing at a fancy Italian restaurant allowed me to spend my tip money regularly on new clothes and going out with friends for vodka sodas four nights a week. I had graduated from college, however, I was dragging my feet when it came to looking for a job in my field. I was making better tips than many entry level positions paid so why would I bother with that now?

As you probably predicted, I was wrong, because I lost that job. After that my car was totaled in an accident, and I found out I owed over $1000 in taxes (that job was clearly too good to be true). I still had six months left of my lease, but had only about three months of rent in my bank account, and that didn’t account for all of my other bills, food, and my somewhat of a social life because I can’t just give up taco Tuesday deals, I’m sorry. It wasn’t until after about four mental breakdowns on the phone with my mom that I came to the conclusion that I had to really buckle down and find a real job.

I made accounts for all of the job search engines, networked all of the people I knew in college that had already found jobs, and applied to over 100 different positions throughout the New England area in a month. Maybe four or five of them called me in for an interview, three of which were pyramid schemes that were just straight up hoaxes, and the other two didn’t continue with a second interview. Meanwhile, I was overdue on multiple credit card bills, I had errands to run with no car to get me where I had to be, and I was quickly running out of sanity. Tally up about two more mental breakdowns and thoughts of giving up and moving back home.

Then the next month things started to look up again. I received a stiff check in the mail for my totaled car (I was ruled not at fault for the collision!), won Bruins tickets at bingo, and landed a new job that is infinitely better than the one I lost - hello salary plus benefits! Finally, the roller coaster was back on its uphill climb and I started to feel like I was back in my normal groove. I started to notice that when my life started to settle, I began to question why I was so nervous about everything in the first place. Why I wasted so many tears pitying myself, thinking about my utter failure as an adult and why I didn’t use it as motivation to become a better, more badass adult. I wondered why I put myself through all that self-inflicted pain.

But then the realization that hit me like a Mack Truck was the fact that my mental breakdowns and self-pitying quite literally got me nowhere. Why was I allowing myself to get to such a ridiculous state?! It did not get my job or my car back when I lost them, and it certainly did not waive my taxes. It seemed like the world was crashing down onto me, but in reality, it made me stronger in the end. I was forced to learn alternate solutions than what I was used to in order to maintain my normal routine, and now I see how kick-ass of myself that is for conquering those challenges with my sanity still kind of intact. Figuring out that my problems are really are not that terrible after my eyes have dried and I’ve finished sulking over my misfortunate situations is a very reassuring feeling.

This rollercoaster of life and emotions sometimes can get the best of me, but I know that I will bounce back harder than Big Sean the next time something gets in my way of smooth sailing. The next time something happens that I think will be the cause of my own apocalypse, I’ll be able to handle it (slightly) more rationally than before, until I become unstoppable. Because I am a kick-ass person who doesn’t let silly problems get her down. Because I know that I can truly handle anything that might be tossed my way, and because every time that I call my parents having a meltdown, they know exactly what to do and what to say; it’s because they’ve been there themselves. And they made it that far right? So who says that I can’t make it too?