I've had an addiction to the MTV "reality" show The Real World for the past five years or so. I watch every new season, and I've even spent some time perusing the first few seasons online.. The show started out twenty years ago as an attempt to actually portray the real world by putting six or seven twenty-somethings from all different walks of life in a house together so that the gay man with AIDS can become friends with the struggling cartoonist and the sorority girl (The Real World San Francisco, circa 1993 - my favourite season). The show has developed over the years, changing from portraying the work and relationships of smart, unique, and entertaining young adults to exposing the drama and horror of dumb and hot, but just as entertaining, individuals. Nevertheless, the show has remained a constant guilty pleasure in my life. There's something about the illusion of reality that makes disgusting television feel less pathetic.
When I was in school, The Real World was a weekly hour-long study break during which I could feel my mind melting and shutting down as I watched drunken catfights between half-dressed crazies unfold before my glazed over eyes. It was a welcome relief to embrace the mindlessness of ultimate stupidity. Now that I am no longer a full time student, the hour I spent every week for the past two months watching The Real World Portland can't be justified so easily. Not only is the necessity of sixty solid minutes of not thinking slowly fading, but also my entrance into the real world makes the act of watching The Real World all the more disheartening.
Everybody always warns that the real world isn't as magical as imagined by us youngsters, but that doesn't stop most people from jumping at it as soon as possible. I was never like that; I was never itching to be done with school so that I could take on the responsibilities of an adult. I was genuinely satisfied with the trials and tribulations of student life, and even though I definitely had more than my fair share of stressful moments, I always knew that I was lucky to be a student in the first place and I was content right where I was. I was pulled and pushed into the real world against my will, but now that I'm here I'm finding myself to be quite content once again.
My real world now consists of balancing two jobs and enduring that annoying ache at the back of your mind labelled "financial stress" that never really goes away. And it involves having to deal with all the little day to day things by myself when they would be a much smaller deal if endured alongside a parent or partner. But it is also defined by independence, freedom, and adventure. I have a home that is only mine, I have easy jobs that are fun and that I actually enjoy going to, and I am busy purely because I want to be. I have had many moments of daunting loneliness and uncertainty, but ultimately, I have yet to discover the horrors of the real world that were supposedly awaiting me. I go to work to pay my bills, and other than that I do whatever I want to do.
Now when people ask me what I am, I can't tell them I'm a student anymore. So my answer has become "a recent graduate who is going back to school asap" because, as much as I'm enjoying the real world, I can't do this forever. I am a perpetual student, and am itching to crawl back to the pale-faced, sleep-deprived, red-eyed world of reading and writing all day every day. The real world is a fun place to be for now, but I think I am much better suited as a student who emerges from her textbooks every so often to enjoy being a spectator of The Real World.
For now though, I have another year and two months of the real world spread out before me, and the only thing to do is run at it full on, grasping those moments not taken up by lectures and libraries, and making my world as exciting as it can be. It's time to live in the moment and do whatever I want. I may have to put The Real World on hold for a bit, but it will be there waiting for me when I return to my true self.
