I need to put this into words.
I can't stop thinking about next year. I'm going to be a senior, a mere 24 credits away from graduation, and completely at odds in my life. I can't stop thinking about the future and how I have absolutely no freaking idea what I'm going to do with my life. Getting a job, grad school, being a cat lady, it all narrows down to making decisions, something I've never been particularly fond of.
I used to say that I wanted to be an editor, how ideal it would be to work in a publishing house, but now, I'm not so sure. I've realized through my English classes how very much I believe in artistic license, and that to me, writers can do whatever that want as long as it is so good I couldn't imagine not turning the page. As it turns out, that is the opposite of editors' job. How fortunate.
I would follow up that prediction by saying I would become a teacher if need be, that high school would be a fun English to teach because I always adored my teachers. However, with Texas and really the whole country budgeting the education system down to pennies, how can I consider a career that so many are being laid off from?
Even my high reaching, maybe-I'll-go-to-law-school bit is falling extremely short as partners in million dollar firms, world wide, are struggling to find a job. Law school, even grad school, looks silly when it now means more loans and more time when it doesn't seem to help most people.
Honestly, it's the most terrifying time in my life, making my senior year of high school look like a total joke. I told Emma a few weeks ago that maybe high school wasn't as awful as we bemoan it to be and she groaned in response, but there is a reason; this is so much scarier than I ever thought. I feel like on some level, I thought I would just stay in college forever. That the four years that I get to learn and be here would seem eternal while that pesky future, with its reality and jobs was an old wives tale people told to scare the naive students. Do you have any idea how much it sucks to realize it's true?
All in all, I'm stuck in this perpetual rut of not wanting to do schoolwork, because it just brings me closer to my senior year, while being so eager to make the most of it that I end up overworked and entirely too lazy. It's such a silly way to get through college, but when the alternate is getting a real job, one where I can't watch Scooby Do reruns and have twirling contests, I stick with it.
So yeah, I'm turning 21. Sure, I've got approximately 12 months until I walk across that stage and face my lifetime. Even my dreams at night have become riddled with worry and anxiety over the silliest things like signing a year-long lease on an apartment. It's all so fast and I'm confident in saying that I have no idea in my educated mind what I will do. Heaven help me.
