All through high school, college, and graduate school, I had a goal to work towards. The understanding was that in a few years I’d move on to something else, jump another step up the ladder, advance a little further down the path.
But then I got my graduate degree and moved on to a “real” job. All of a sudden, I don’t have a concrete goal waiting for me a few years out. That’s not to say that I don’t have any goals — personally or professionally — but that I don’t have a real deadline by which I must achieve them. I’m not looking forward to a graduation date or an admission date or anything like that. My life has gone off the map. I’m in uncharted territory.
It’s freeing, in a way, but also terrifying. What the frak am I supposed to do with myself now? It’s all totally up to me, just as it has been before, but also not at all like it has been before. I’ve made the jump; now I’m just waiting to see where I’ll land.
