Since moving to the EU, I can count the number of times someone has actually cared what I do for a living. It took a few years for me not to care too. I think one of my friends works in a machine shop and another at a bike shop, but I really have no idea. We hang out, play games together, complain about people at our jobs, and all the normal stuff. Yet, not once have we actually talked about what we do for a living.

In the US, the question of what I did for a living was one of the first questions in any conversation, as if my answer was who I was and defined my worth in their eyes. I don’t miss it.