I've looked forward to the day I would walk across the stage for years. All my life has been on the college track and at long last less than two months ago I completed my undergraduate career and schooling for good. After years of navigating the treacherous waters of higher education. After years of of blood (yes sometimes blood), sweat, and tears it's all over and I still don't know what the h*ll I'm doing.
I've never been a person without a plan; the idea that I honestly have no clue what happens next scares the shit out of me. That's what no one tells you about graduating. No one tells you what comes after the moment you move that tassel left, awkwardly toss your cap in the air and after the glimmer of the whole affair is done. When the afterglow fades, what no one tells you is that many, many people are left feeling lost, depressed and anxious about what the future holds.
The optimist in me wants to tell everyone that life is peaches and cream post-grad; "You'll score your dream job! You've worked all your life for this moment! The world is yours!" etc. The pessimist in me often wonders what it's all for because there are no guarantees and wonders if it may be me that isn't good enough. But the realist, the side that usually wins over the flowery whims of my inner optimist and my dark cloud that is pessimism and self-doubt says that it hasn't even been a full two months since I've graduated. The realist in me, that for those last two months I've shoved down with restless thoughts tells me, "Calm down Gabs, very few people get their dream job directly out of college. Give yourself a break. You started applying in February, so you're already ahead of the game."
I suppose everyone's experience is different but somehow I get the sense that I'm not alone. The problem seems to lie in the fact that most people don't look beneath the surface in their day to day interactions. To the average person who encounters me I'm a happy girl, with a bright future ahead. Someone who graduated from a great school who's ended one chapter and is onto the next. What people who are not in my intimate circle fail to see is that I'm petrified. That I'm fearful that I may be unemployable. That I cry myself to sleep almost every night, and by day I fill out application after application in hopes that someone will find me worthy. Only those I'm near and dear to realize that I panic at the thought of growing up and truly being a woman.
If you are reading this and you've felt even a thimble full of the same doubts, anxieties and insecurities; I want you to know that you are not alone and eventually somehow, some way I think we'll all be alright. Just develop a little patience and keep at it.
