It’s a serious challenge to find work that pays the bills while continuing to make art. Many aspiring painters or novelists find their life’s passion relegated to a hobby, burned out on jobs as waitresses or baristas.

As my final semester ended, a favorite sculpture professor cautioned me that, as an artist, I had a choice between a career and a vocation. I could end up with a solid nine-to-five that would leave little time for art but would also put me in an enviable Charles Village loft and pay off my student loans significantly quicker than my other option, slogging through poorly paid “bozo” jobs with more flexible hours so I could pursue my art. This decision symbolized a lifelong battle between what I wanted for myself, and what others expected of me.

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I swore I wouldn’t end up like Bridget Fonda in Singles: “I’m twenty-three years old, and I work at a coffee shop. You know, I thought I’d be doing a lot more with my life at twenty-three.” The idea of spending my youth steaming soymilk beaded my skin with cold sweat. When I got my coupon book from Sallie Mae, I thought I’d chance that nine-to-five.

I found an opening for a TV writing job and scheduled an interview. I followed the etiquette prescribed by the Career Development office: pressed gray skirt-suit, blouse with tasteful neckline, and a résumé printed on thick, expensive paper. A week passed, brutally slow, and still no word. Two weeks after the interview, I forced myself to call the woman I interviewed with. In sickly-sweet mock-empathetic tones, she informed me that the position had been eliminated due to budget cuts.

I entertained fantasies of surging through the receiver and shaking this woman silly, screaming, “Then why the hell couldn’t you call and tell me?” I also learned a very valuable lesson. To the human resources people, you are not a precious snowflake, special and unique. You’re just another résumé in the pile. If you’re lucky enough to snag face-to-face time, you’re just another set of hungry, imploring eyes.

Two months spent sending résumés for every copywriting and assistant editor job I could find didn’t yield so much as one return phone call. Too proud to take anything that didn’t look impressive on a business card, I held out. I lived on yogurt and ate more Ramen noodles than I ever had in school. I envisioned myself as a doomed bohemian out of Rent, but while my waistline shrank, I never became emaciated enough to be glamorous. Sure, I had the time to take up watercolor, but I bled my savings to make that loan payment every month.

Finally, I caved. I took the dreaded coffee shop job. After four years of earning accolades for my work, it was demoralizing to find myself hauling wet coffee grounds to the dumpster.

The pay was barely above minimum wage and the customers were unfailingly rude, yet at some point, I don’t know when exactly, I came to appreciate the coffee shop. The dull repetitive tasks, loading the filter and mopping the floor, left my mind a Zen-like blank. The characters I’d been writing my last semester returned, livelier than ever. I wrote, and realized that I hadn’t written at all in those two months spent looking for a “real” job, when my mind was clouded with other concerns. The more I hated going to work every morning, the more I cherished the evenings with my novel.

I remember the final scene in The Graduate. Hoffman’s character having rejected a soul-numbing job at his father’s firm, bursts out of the church with the woman he loves. They board a departing bus, seemingly directionless yet guided by some inner compass offering a sense of where they’re going. My rebellion is not as grand or glamorous. It’s an internal rebellion, the realization that the real world doesn’t have to be a world of bills and obligations. The real world is the world inside your head.