Sooooooo, Now What?

Up until now, there has never been a time in my life when I didn't know some version of what was going to happen next. There has never been a time, until now, when my life hasn't followed a specific path, at least when it came to schooling. First came preschool, then elementary, then middle school, and then high school, which was subsequently followed by college. This is how I always knew my life would go, but as of Saturday, May 9th, all of that has officially ended. I am now a college graduate and for the first time in my life I have absolutely no idea what comes next.  

I guess the strangest thing about being (presumably) finished with the education system is the fact that I literally have nothing to do. There are no more papers to write or tests to take or deadlines to meet. There are no more classes to attend or schedules to organize or lectures to listen to. Everything about that life, the one I've been living for the past seventeen years (preschool doesn't really count), is finished. I did what I said I was going to do. I accomplished a goal, both for my family and for myself. I graduated. And despite the fact that I'm happy it's all finished, I find myself wondering, now what? 

On the one hand, I'm completely terrified by all of this. But on the other hand, I'm kind of excited at the prospect of not knowing what happens next. Relatively speaking, I could do just about anything at this point. I could get a job. I could apply to grad school. I could start sending out my writing and cross my fingers for something positive among the inevitable rejections. I could save up my money and travel somewhere far away. I could do any one of these things and more and I could start tomorrow.  

Throughout this entire process, the education system, we are constantly asked questions regarding our future. In elementary school and middle school it's "What do you want to be when you grow up?" In high school it's "Are you going to college? Where are you going to college? What are you going to study?" But at no other time in my life have these questions ever been asked with such vehemence as they have in college. Throughout the past four years I have been asked, sometimes on a daily basis, an array of the following questions. "What is your major? What will/can you do with this major? What are you going to do after you graduate? Do you have a job lined up? What are you going to do now? What's next for you? Do have a plan? Do you know what you want to do?" And to all of these questions, which have been asked more in the last few months than ever before, I always respond with an aggressive shrug or a noncommittal "I don't know." And of course, in response to my responses I have gotten a variety of other responses. Some simply give me an "I feel sorry for you" smile/grimace. Others prefer the nod and mumble approach before one of us walks away or changes the subject. While some continue to ask more questions until they can pry some sort of satisfactory response from me. And to all of these people, and the many more who are still to come, I say and beseech you, "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, WHAT IS SO F*CKING WRONG ABOUT NOT KNOWING WHAT COMES NEXT? WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS SO TERRIBLE ABOUT NOT HAVING SOME CONCRETE PLAN?"

I mean honestly, when did not having a serious, five year monstrosity of a plan become such a terrible thing? When did letting people figure out their own future on their own terms become so offensive to the general public? For crying out loud people, I just graduated college for f*ck's sake. I have just been released from a system that has basically kept me its prisoner for the past seventeen years of my life and now you're asking me what I want to do with the next fifty? To that I say, "WHERE IS YOUR CHILL?" Some may call this naive, but I'd like to believe that I will figure out my life one step at a time, one day at a time, one year at a time, and somewhere along the way (I hope) I'll find what I'm supposed to do and where I'm supposed to be. But until that time, please, I beseech you once more, stop with the questions. Stop with the comments. Stop with the suggestions and the references. I appreciate where you are coming from and I love you for caring enough to worry about my future, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without any of you, but it is my future. It's mine to create or destroy, to screw up or make successful and I'm the one who has to deal with the consequences of whatever I choose. I will talk about my future plans when I want to talk about them and I will do so with whomever I want to talk about them with. But until then, I'm just going to enjoy the time that I have been given right now. I'm going to enjoy this small sliver of freedom that has been given to me before I am forced to enter the "real" world and become one of those adult things. 

So many people today place so much importance and so much emphasis on the future and on what happens next, and for a very long time, and sometimes even still, I was one of them. I was constantly plagued, and often still am, by the idea that I was never going to achieve anything of real importance if I didn't have some sort of plan for myself. I was terrified by the idea of not accomplishing certain goals in a certain period of time, but somewhere along the way I've forced myself to not care so much. By this I don't mean that I've given up on my goals, but only that I've given myself a wider time frame to achieve them in. This year one of my biggest goals was to start living my life much more in the present instead of in the past or the future, and though it's been hard, I think I'm getting better at it. I'm slowly learning to be okay with not knowing and, especially now, I'm learning both how terrifying and exciting that can really be. I'm learning not to put so much pressure on myself to always have everything together because that's impossible, and it's not healthy either. So many kids these days, and people my own age as well, are constantly being bombarded by adults to have their entire futures mapped out. Their expected to know exactly what they want to do or who they want to be when their eighteen years old, but the truth is that they don't even truly know who they are yet. I know I still don't, even after four years of college, and that's okay. We find out who we are through living our lives, not through planning them out. We find our path not by taking the one that others want for us, but by blazing our very own trail. So to the kids, and 22 year olds, out there who are still unsure of what they want to do with their life, I say, don't worry about it. Relax a little bit. You are allowed to not know. You are allowed to pick one thing and then change your mind and then change it again. You're allowed to make mistakes because that's what life is all about. It's about making choices, whether they are right or they are wrong, and then having the courage to change course even if it scares you, just because you know that a better path awaits you somewhere else. 

And so, after all of that, I just want to say that the past four years, and the past seventeen, have been some of the very best years of my life, but they are over now. Now I have to pick up the pieces of what is left and create a new life, one that's hopefully better than the one before it. And though this prospect is incredibly scary, it's also incredibly exhilarating, because I get to put into it whatever I wish. I get to create the life that I want, even if I don't quite know what that is yet, and this in itself is a beautiful, terrifying, wonderful, confusing, but altogether lovely thing. So I'm going to embrace the not knowing, and ask anyone who cares to do the same, if only because it means that I get to revel in the beautiful thing that is right now, and the weird and wonderful moments that make up this life.

Love & Chaos,
Sam 

One Door Closes

This Saturday, May 9th, 2015, I will graduate from college. It seems crazy now, how the past four years could have gone  by so quickly, and now that they're over, I'm not entirely sure what to feel. Am I happy that I'm finished? Absolutely. Am I proud of what I've accomplished? Of course. But there's also a part of me that's a little bit sad, and a little bit terrified. Maybe this is because I'm so terrible with change. Or maybe it's because I'm supposed to enter the "real world" now and find a career and make money, and do all of those adult things I've been putting off for so long. Or maybe it's because of my constant worry that I haven't done enough in the four years I was given. 

I know that a lot of people out there will say that the time they spent in college were some of the best years of their lives. And in a way I can understand this, but I'm not sure I can say the same. These past four years have been many things for me. Scary. Fun. Awkward. Exciting. Sad. Confusing. Wonderful. And in some ways they have been some of the best years I've had, but I'd like to think that the best years, the real best years, are still ahead of me. 

Monday was my last real day on campus. And on this day, instead of going straight to class like I usually do, I decided to sit down at one of the many picnic tables on campus and enjoy the beautiful day. When I sat down I noticed that someone had written something on the table. Written in cursive black ink were the words, "You are living art." And I thought, Only you, Webster. Only you. Because you really never can tell what kinds of weird, beautiful little hidden gems you'll find on campus, and that's one of the things I've always loved about it. And I'm so glad that I found this one on my last day, because those four little words helped to remind me just how much I really will miss my college years. I won't miss the anxiety, or the tests and the papers, and especially not the cost of the textbooks. But what I will miss is the environment. The creative people. The feeling of being somewhere and having something to do, and feeling as if anything could happen at any given moment. Those are the things I'll miss the most. Those are the memories I'll take with me. 

After seeing those words scrawled onto that table, it made me want to leave my own mark, so I did. Nothing quite as poetic, just my initials and the year I'm graduating, but it made me feel connected somehow. Both to my school and to the people who came before me, and the people who will come after me. Because maybe some day in the future someone will sit down on that bench and see my initials and wonder what became of me. Maybe someone will decide to add their own name, make their own mark. And it is in this way that a small part of me will stay with the school that I never truly got to know in the way I wanted to, but that I will always remember nonetheless.

I'm sure there will be a lot of things going through my head when I walk across that stage on Saturday. Like don't trip, and don't shake with the wrong hand, and don't forget to move the tassel, and especially I am so freaking hungry right now. But the main thing I'll be thinking, the main thing I've been thinking for the past few weeks, is how incredibly lucky I am. I am so lucky that I have parents who are willing to support me. So lucky to have siblings that have become friends. So lucky to have friends that feel like siblings, who can make me laugh until I cry. So lucky to have gone to a school that has helped me to learn and grow and become a little bit more me. So lucky to have met people along the way who made my college experience just a little bit easier. I am so lucky, in so many ways, and perhaps this is why I am sad about college ending, but not too sad. Not too sad because I know that no matter what happens next, no matter where I go or what I become, I'll always have people standing beside me who support me and who believe in me, and that's greater than any diploma I could ever receive.

As the cliche goes, "When one door closes, another opens." And though it may be scary, to leave behind something that has now become familiar for something unknown, I know that it has to be done. I don't know where I'll be going in the future, but I do know that I won't be going alone, and in the end, that's all that really matters.

Congrats to all my friends and anyone else graduating this year. We did it! 

Love & Chaos,
Sam