There, I said it.
Ask my best friend, my sorority family, my mom, my residents, and even my favorite professor – they would all tell you that. But now I am admitting it to the entire World Wide Web.
I get a little bit open and honest sometimes on Sparkle and Shine, such as talking about loosing my father or why I enjoy college as a single gal. So here we are again with my current emotions (ew, I know, emotions).
Shockingly enough, it has nothing to do with all the (overwhelming) responsibilities that come with graduating, the FOMO that will exist because of some of my best friends still being together as undergrads, or the fact that I’m not truly done with school because of my IDD Grad classes. What scares me the most is the fact that the routine is done and there is just one giant empty space that looks like a black hole called “the future.”
Since pre-school at the age of four, school has been what our lives have consisted of. Swap out dance practices and Gymboree practices to elementary school sports and spelling bees, swap out high school swim meets and newspaper meetings for sorority chapter meetings and study group sessions. Our lives have revolved around our education and extracurriculars since we were four years old. Now, we are 22, and that routine is about to change.
I live for routine the same way that Perez Hilton lives for celebrity gossip. Waking up, setting goals and to-do lists for the day that help me achieve my overall dream, working out, doing work – it’s all a little bit different each day, but it still comes down to being the overall same thing.
Now, it’s time to set a new schedule and a new routine. I have no idea what that will consist of, especially since the last thing I want from my life is to live a boring, unfulfilled, melancholy life. And it’s the fact that I have no idea what the future will hold that I’m so scared of -walking across that stage, ADPi stole around my neck and cap on my head, and a giant blank page in front of me. Then what?
It should excite me, I know. But for a Type-A personality that likes to have control over everything, a giant blank page, hell a blank chapter, is terrifying. It means that everything I have had planned for the past 22 years is over and it’s time to make a new plan for another 22 years. Where does one even start with that?
We are raised with the concept of going to school, going to college/trade school. So this entire time, I walked a very similar path as my peers. There were choices along the way, but for the most part it was always along a singular path. Now, that path is just a giant field to make any choices, take any actions, do what I want.
And that terrifies me. That’s a lot of “new,” lots of changes, and lots of decisions. (All of which I’ll be sharing with you!)
At the end of the day, the same people that I mentioned above, the ones who listen to me have weekly panic attacks to about the future and listen to me stress cry about it, are the reasons I know I’ll get through it. Cause after being talked off the fictional ledge when I’m staring into the abyss of my future, I have them as my biggest supporters to tackle my scary post-grad future.