As many of us know, senior year of college and your early twenties is a very fun and exciting time. It comes with graduating college and getting your first real job. For some of us, these years mean getting your own place, and becoming financially stable, maybe falling in love? But for many, not all of those things happen, if any. Senior year of college is filled with anxiety and fear of the future. It's full of the unknown.
I’d be lying if I said I had any clue what my future holds. I have no idea what I’m doing. Shocking. But really, I freak out about my future every single day the same way our parents freaked out when they dropped us off at preschool for the first time. Instead, this time, I’m just scared of disappointing them, time has dropped me off to a place called my future, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing here. I wish someone could just tell me, point their fingers and say to me “This is your plan, this is how you’ll get there, and this is how the rest of your life is going to happen.” Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Unfortunately, our lives will never be that easy. We can’t all be the Kardashians and have our lives spoon-fed to us. But just because our lives won’t be that easy doesn’t mean we should be scared of what we don’t know.
By senior year of college, you have an idea of who think you are. Here I am. I’m involved in clubs. I have my friends. I know my campus/college town like the back of my hand. In four months, though, everything I know so well is going to change. Every sense of myself that I spent the past four years establishing is going to be in a whole new territory: the real world.
Personally, I refuse to believe that college is the best four years of our lives. If I remember correctly, they said the same thing about high school. Anyway, that’s just depressing. There has to be more to life than red solo cups, gross house parties, and shitty guys. Don’t get me wrong, I love college, and the friends I’ve made along the way but if it was supposed to be the best four years of my life, then maybe I set my expectations too high. I have dreams way bigger than I can even comprehend myself. I’ve managed to figure out the whole college thing, but now it’s time to figure out this “real world” thing.
I’m sure I can think of a million reasons to be scared of the future. In fact, I can’t give you any real reasons not to be scared of our future but I can assure you this. The fear of growing up is something you eventually just have to face. Remember how terrifying middle school and high school were supposed to be. Think about how happy you are to have changed from your middle school self. Like when I wore so much eyeliner you could barely see my eyes, or colored skinny jeans and band tees. I’ve moved on from my misunderstood skate park rat-MySpace days, thankfully. And I'll move on from these days.
Things are going to happen in our lives that are way out of our control whether we’re prepared or not. We just have to go with wherever life takes us, we can’t press pause on our lives, or fast forward or rewind. There is no point blank answer as to why we shouldn’t be scared for life after graduation. There is no point blank answer for where I plan to go after school is over. I do know, that I am going to go somewhere because I refuse to let myself have anything other than a positive outlook on my future.
I promise there is life beyond beer pong and sweaty house parties. It may be scary, but it will be thrilling. It will be unpredictable. One day, when you’re successful in your career, laying in bed while listening to your partner read your baby girl a bedtime story, you’ll look back and realize things went exactly the way they were supposed to. And even then, there's going to be so much life to live, so much room for change and so much future to fear.
