Professor Crem awoke from her peaceful slumber, kicking her blanket off lightly with her feet. Letting out a hum of satisfaction, she looked out her window near the foot of the bed.
I suspect a new, enjoyable chapter of my life may begin soon. Crem smiled to herself.
The days pleasant weather induced a burst of youthful energy in Crem as she conducted her daily routine of making tea, a balanced breakfast of fruits and protein, and daily stretching. She was not extremely old by any standards, but, at the comfortable age of fifty, she maintained a moderate pace in life until she wanted to change it at any time.
As she sat on her porch, her tabby cat swiftly jumped onto her lap and curled into a warm ball of fur. The warm June day was reminiscent of Crem’s college days, as she rushed to classes eager to complete all her credits. Barely able to enjoy the embracing warmth of summer then, it was funny how different her life had turned out now.
After graduating college, Crem didn’t know what path she wanted to pursue. Consequently, she returned home to live with her parents, it made no sense to stay in her college town after completing her education there.
She remembered the worry and constant anxiety of getting a job because a bachelor’s degree in education and a minor in accounting were not enough to secure a decent-paying teaching position. Many positions required at least 1-2 years of experience, but how was she supposed to get that when she was fresh out of college?
She didn’t have time to pursue internships while in college, so Crem solely focused on her college work and working a part-time job to pay for her 4-year college.
Many of her friends seemed to have found immediate success, so it was hard not to feel left behind.
Crem let out a bittersweet smile, being glad to have overcome those hard times, yet also sad that her younger self had to hold onto the heavy weight of uncertainty during those times.
Life was indeed a peculiar thing. She rode the ups and downs of life, and just a year after staying with her parents, someone contacted her about a position at a firm in New York.
Finally, the endless applications she submitted worked out in her favor. Although, she had never imagined that her first job would take her so far away from her home.
At age 25, Crem experienced the pains of adulting, her first heartbreak, existential crises, the joys of her first “official” paycheck, etc. She fully intended to settle there for the remainder of her life after staying there for ten years.
Oddly enough, she was packing her large suitcases at the end of those ten years. At the age of thirty-five, her opinions of how she wanted to live out her life had changed. She enjoyed the fast pace and competitiveness of colleagues around her. It was her pace of life then, but now she wanted to slow down and surround herself with the things and people that brought her true peace and happiness in life.
If that meant revisiting the familiar places that she never thought she would end up back living there again, so be it.
With the repertoire she had built up in New York, she was easily offered the position of professor in the accounting department of the college she had once attended.
Crem was now closer to her family, near her college friends that had stuck with her through thick and thin. She also secured a stable, respectable job that would sustain her living and match her academic rigor.
Currently sitting on the comfortable porch chair of her own house, life had indeed worked out in peculiar ways.
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