Now what?

This was a very difficult column to write.

I feel like I say that about nearly every piece I write, and while each one is a challenge in its own right, this is different.

Stylistically, I struggle with getting words on paper in a way that ‘flows’. Years of STEM classes and very little reading or writing for leisure has done that to my brain, but I accepted that reality a while back.

This isn’t a stylistic problem, though. This has more to do with the fact that I’m not sure how best to articulate what it is I want to say. I certainly don’t think this is a column anyone would have expected for the first write-up for Senioritis this semester. But here it goes, anyways.

The time off during winter break made me realize: I’m in a bit of a weird headspace, presently.

I am, for all intents and purposes, wrapped up with all the major requirements of a college senior. I’ve had a full-time role lined up for almost an entire semester (though, as I wrote in a column last fall, I thought about the decision for a long time). My undergraduate and graduate study plans are finally polished and turned in. Hell, I even have my outfits for all the big upcoming senior year events ready to go (seriously, I was that bored).

Everything I ‘need’ to do is done. That leaves me with… what I want to do, I guess?

I should probably be happier about those prospects. But after years of prioritizing my ‘need-to-dos’ over ‘want-to-dos’, this new freedom is very strange. And honestly? I’m not totally sure what it is that I ‘want’ to do anymore.

The idea of going after what I ‘love’ has never looked more daunting. And, strangely enough, I’ve never felt more hollow, more unfulfilled. Even though, on paper, that should be wildly untrue.

I don’t know what it’s stemmed from, exactly.

Perhaps it’s the underlying knowledge that in a few months, my slate gets wiped clean. In no time, very little of what I did here will matter at all. My degree, my experiences, everything I went through will become a one or two sentence bit of small talk, if that.

Letting go of that isn’t the daunting part, per se. But becoming a new person? That’s a little scary.

I told my father a few days ago of a strange anxiety that I have — this weird feeling that if I don’t ‘succeed’ by age 25, I feel as if someone will literally come and shoot me. Even though, I confessed, I have no idea what my definition of ‘success’ even is (and that, of course, I know no one would be pressed enough to shoot me).

None of these feelings make sense. After all, I’ve always said I was ready to join ‘the real world’. I do think I am, at least from a professional standpoint. I can’t wait to start work. I hope, more than anything else, that I’ll find it to be fulfilling. But everything else surrounding adulthood? All of that seems lonely and terrifying at once.

I didn’t mean to turn this column into a prognosis. I usually end with some sort of life lesson or happy platitude to take away. I don’t know that I have anything like that to offer this time around. All I can say is this:

It’s okay to not have it all figured out. Or to have it all figured out on paper, but still not feel great. We’re all allowed off days, allowed unreasonable anxieties, allowed to spend too much time inside our own heads.

Maybe the tides will shift, and I’ll get a new perspective. Time is the best healer, after all. But until then, while these feelings are imperfect, I’m okay with feeling this way. And all I can do is hope for a better tomorrow.