...you better get over it and have a little patience. It is a virtue, after all.
I haven't written in this blog in quite a while. As a matter of fact, I haven't written much at all in quite a while. I got a little lost. I'm going to try to find my way back here.
May marked the culmination of my college career, and the beginning of my current stage of life that shall be referred to as the Twilight Zone. Here in the TZ, my identity seems transient. Without meaning to sound overly dramatic about the fact that I have a BA degree from a University, but...what does it mean now? For my entire life my profession, my direction, my purpose was one word: student. As a toddler I embraced the role and never came out of costume, from naptimes and coloring stations to metaphysics and romantic literature, through moods and styles and hobbies, hairstyles and mailing addresses, one thing remained constant: I was a student. As a sidenote my hairstyle remained fairly constant as well. Always long enough to be pulled back in a ponytail.
Now, for the first time, school doesn't start in September. It doesn't start at all. Nothing starts, in fact. I have no plan. I'm floating in the post graduate Twilight Zone, and it scares the living daylights out of me. I wonder if this is how a mouse feels at the end of a maze; you get dropped in, you follow twists and turns, choose directions, all toward this one goal of finishing, of proving you could get through it and then, well, you're there. No more corners to peak around. Just open space.
What's in the open space? I don't know yet, and that's why I'm nervous. Fear of the unknown is nothing new, and the only form of protection I have within the unknown is a piece of paper with my name on it, signed by the Dean, attesting that I made it through the maze.
But then I realize, the open space has been there all along. Losing the bubble of that one solid identity was, and is, a shock. There's really no decompression chamber, so when it comes to changes like this, I guess I shouldn't fault myself for losing my breath. The trick is to remain positive, and to open my eyes and look around. I've got friends who will help me stay steady on new ground, family to support me, and if I stand up and steady my breathing, that open space won't be so scary. That open space will fill up with whatever I put in it.
Don't be afraid of the unknown; when we came in, we didn't even know ourselves.
