ANXIETY!
Ever heard of her? She hits you like a ton of bricks when you least expect it, doesn’t she?
Sometimes it’s like you pry your eyes open and Baba Yaga, John Wick HIMSELF, is in the corner of your room asking why you killed his dog, and you can do nothing but breathe in and breathe it out (?!?!?). Anxiety cuddles with me every night, wrapping me up in detrimental thoughts on how I could have been better throughout the day, the week, my entire life… just casual things, y’know??
Let me not forget that she makes sure I’m taking my vitamins everyday, stretching, brushing my teeth, chugging my water, a cocktail of cyanide, and barely breathing as I contemplate my life choices. One of those key mental points always leads back to my future. I often wonder if I’m making the correct strides towards a life that leads to security, expression, and happiness; the life of my dreams. Although I do love what I’m studying, I often question it…
Every thought and expression leading to my “future” makes me feel like I’m on the brink of being radioactive, waiting for test results to see if I’m contagious to the people around me.
Can they see through the façade?
Is changing my major worth it, right now?
Do I even want to?
Will it open the doors to the future I truly want?
A future full of intellect, creativity, culture, professionalism…
Do I have the time to question my major?
Is time the only thing I have?
Time to contemplate? To re-asses?
Is there such a thing as perfection for academic choices and divine timing?
(spoiler alert: all you have is nothing BUT time)
Will everything work out? Fall into place and I’m just over reacting? What does it entail for something to work out? To succeed?
I’m giving you a crisis right now, aren’t I? Get in line.
Simple answer: no clue. I have hope, that’s definitely something that exists somewhere inside me, but a clue as to what I’m doing? Absolutely not.
Ah, the pleasures of not having my frontal lobe developed.
In hindsight, I have written this entire article to panic and express my sympathies and empathy to whomever feels pinned to a wall as the academic years roll by, graduation starts rearing its head and our major stalks behind as a companion towards our future. *shudders*
It’s quite sobering actually, how at 18 I swore that I could eat the whole world and have space to spare for dessert. Yet, as I have grown, now 21, I am at a crossroads and can’t help but bite my nails about how I can execute it, or make sure I’m doing my actual best.
AND TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY NO ONE ELSE AROUND ME KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING EITHER (I swear to god not even the 30 or 40 years olds know what’s going on).
As I’m writing this, the knowledge does not escape me that I’m answering my own questions, going in circles and creating a melting group of chaos in the wake of these questions. I’m writing this not only for me and to put words into my ever consuming spirals BUT so you may feel some sort of comfort if you’re questioning or dealing with such anxieties. If you’re in your first, or third, hell, maybe even sixth year in college, surviving your way through, do not flagellate yourself, or judge yourself too harshly. Switch or don’t, do a double bachelor or a minor on an extremely opposing side of your main interest. Make some unnecessary journeys if you have to, take risks on some treacherous roads once in a while, swim in the sea, touch some grass.
Some way, somehow, we can get the rock to the top of the mountain.