Oh, hi, Life. Didn't see you there.
So it turns out I am graduating in a month. Graduating from college. This tidbit is only now beginning to hit me/sink in, and, looking back over the past few months I'm realizing how determinedly I have been sticking my head in the sand to avoid the reality of it. Hell--the past four years, even. Up until about last week, I've been in the mindset of oh I have plenty of time, plenty plenty. Oops.
I mean, I have my "plan," i.e., the spiel I spit out at well-meaning adults (ugh I guess I'll have to be one of those too now) when they inevitably ask brightly, "So, what do you want to do?" It goes basically as follows:
Oh, you know, I was planning on moving down to New Orleans for a year or so and just live for a while...take some time off so I don't burn out...and I'll start looking at grad schools while I'm down there...oh, no, I'm not sure what I'd go for, that's part of the reason I'm taking time off, y'know, so I don't get stuck in the wrong thing. I dunno, an MFA or something in linguistics. Yeah, I like words...Also, I really want to go out of state for grad school or whatever, really get out of here. I was born and raised in Louisiana, but I feel like if, y'know, I'm acting like a "writer" then it would be a crime not to like in New Orleans for a while...I mean, it's such a dynamic place, and I feel like I'm at the right "dynamic" time in my life to really be there, y'know?
[If they press me on the grad school issue I usually laugh nervously and mumble something about Boulder or Chicago]
Not that the above isn't true. That is, in fact, the current plan. I just have A) no idea how to get from point here to point New Orleans or B) from point New Orleans to point grad school. I know that there are plenty of resources available to me, especially regarding the grad school thing, but actually beginning to confront the looming precipice of Real Life (ha) by actually thinking about jobs and apartments (I've been looking, but I mean for serious) and then actually looking at admissions for grad programs... the latter made me physically want to vomit. Everywhere. My mind was completely filled with a horrified crescendo of I am not ready for this. I should have been publishing things. Or at least writing things. And most especially, I should have been working harder. For the future. Looking at the linguistics programs especially made me want to faint/disintegrate. So much is necessary. Always.
Tentative new plan: Two years in New Orleans (an additional one while I wait for Boy to graduate) building my portfolio etc, then MFA (two years), then Ph.D. in Linguistics (five+ years). That puts off Real Life for as long as possible, right?
Every time I start to panic about this (which is pretty much all of the times now), I try to take a step back and convince myself that I am not, in fact, crossing some giant, scary threshold into Real Life. Actually, I have been living for about twenty-one years now, so I should really have plenty of practice at the whole life thing. And I've been supporting myself (pretty damn well, I'd say) for the past four of those years. Dammit, I've been living this whole time!
If only I could make this realization stick.
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