The end of the year is fast approaching, and like you all, I am counting down the days. I’m a fourth year, so I’m experiencing peak burnout right now, and I am so excited for classes to be done and so I can just rest and rehabilitate after graduation.
If you had asked me in September, I would have told you that I would be working this summer, then taking a college program in the fall in either editing or publishing. That was always my plan to help elevate my BA. But, as you all know, this past year has been a trip, and things have changed, then changed again. Then they changed one more time.
While researching potential college programs, I began to realize that it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I want to work in publishing in the future, but the programs themselves didn’t appeal to me the way I expected. I shifted my focus and looked into other things, and I realized what sounded really appealing was an MFA in creative writing. I would get to write a novel for my thesis!
But even this wasn’t the right fit: it hit me that even though the MFA sounds amazing, I’m too tired. I’m burnt out. I’m just going through the motions to turn in assignments, and I’ve lost my passion for learning. It felt like a waste to apply for a program that sounds absolutely perfect, only to half-ass my way through it for the grades rather than for the experience.
So, I decided I’ll be taking next year off. Not like I’m taking a year off to work and save up money before going back to school. I’m taking the year to live on my own, work, write and live my life. Hopefully, with that time to rest, I can reconnect with myself and figure out what the hell I want to do next.
Do I want to go back to school and get my master’s in creative writing? Do I want to start looking for jobs in the publishing industry to see whether I can make it work with what I have? Do I want to just go live in the highlands of Scotland and become a cryptid whose only spotted once every full moon by small children up past their bedtimes?
I really don’t know, but I have to admit that the third option is pretty tempting.
Long story short, I really don’t know what I’m doing. Facing down graduation, that fact used to terrify me, but honestly? It’s super fucking freeing. I have no idea what I’m doing next, but for the first time in a while, I’m really excited. I’m looking forward to moving into my new house with my roommates. I’m excited to hopefully get a job at Indigo, where I can read and be around books without the responsibility of my entire career spreading out before me. I’m excited to have free time to write, to really give this thing a shot and see if I have a book in me. I’m excited to go for walks, make TikToks, go out with my friends and get a cat.
I’m excited to be 21, to be independent but not a full grown-up.
I’m excited to not have a plan.