what to do next

Don't you miss the carefree days of childhood, when everything was already decided for you? The only decisions we ever had to make were which friend we wanted to hang out with that afternoon and whether we should listen to our parents and come home on time. Every year was the same. August was the start of school, December brought on Christmas break and the end of May welcomed summer vacation. It was no question that this would be how things went. It never changed. Even after high school graduation, once a specific college was decided upon, the next four years were the same as all the others. The only added decision here was how and where to spend your summer.

A year ago I finished grad school and today, I have no idea what to do with myself. I don't know what I want to do or where I should be. I don't even know how to go about finding the answers to these questions. For the first time, things are unsure and not decided upon and no answer is clear in sight. I will admit, when I finished college, I was in a similar position but I had some options and the perfect situation sort of fell into my lap and put me in Washington, DC for the next 2.5 years. Now here I am, trying to decide what I should be doing. This decision is going to change everything and I am scared out of my mind.

It isn't that I haven't enjoyed growing up and having more freedom and the options to make my own decisions. It's just that I miss when things were easier and I could rely on my mom to make the difficult choices. I could trust her and what she thought was best even if sometimes I didn't like what she had to say. Like the time she wouldn't let me go to Jordan and Andy's pool birthday party in 7th grade when EVERYONE was going to be there. I then learned that I am not allowed to talk back to my dad, the hard way.

The most troubling part about this life altering situation is having to think about someone other than myself. My decision to change my current situation is based on many contributing factors but one of them is a significant other. Though I don't want to move just to be with him, he is a major catalyst in my changing the direction I am currently heading in. A lot of where I end up and what I end up doing depends on him and where he wants to be. It has made this transition so much harder on both of us because we have to think about a second person and how it will affect them. We can no longer be entirely selfish in our choices. The good thing is that we have each other to rely on and we don't have to make these choices on our own.

I will let you know how it turns out later...