I started a new job last week. It's a good kind of grownup professional person's job, for an adult with aspirations of building a serious type of life. I'm flirting with the edges of impostor syndrome, just as I did when I was a graduate student. Impostor syndrome is a suspicion that you don't deserve the station you occupy, and that somebody must have made a mistake to put you there. It is a lingering fear that you might be exposed as a fraud at any moment. I'm not feeling it nearly as acutely as I did at NYU, particularly because I was ultimately so successful at keeping the university fooled for my entire run there. This kind of deception seems to be one of my talents.
The truth is that I'm not really a grownup type person. I don't really think anybody is, because the kid inside of us will always regard our advancing station and accomplishments with bewilderment. If you asked me as a kid "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I would not have told you "I want to be a communications associate at a non-profit specializing in leadership development programs for international graduate students". That's a silly answer to such a serious question. The answers "rock star" and "comic book illustrator" still make more sense to me. Nonetheless, I'm really happy to be a communications associate, and the world is falling into deeper focus for me now that I am one. I guess what I'm trying to say is that growing up is pretty funny.
lyrics
Turn up the radio
Listen to what it says
Think about the radio waves
Call in and have your say
Call them up and have your say
And I'll grow up to be
This thing or that thing
And suddenly everything will make sense
Just wait
Waiting on the platform
Watching all the folks below
Carrying all their burdens
Burdens, just let them go
Oh lord just let it go
And I'll grow up to be
Like you or like me
And suddenly everything will make sense
Just wait