I don’t know that I ever realized before how easy it was in the past to simply not worry about what was coming next because, traditionally speaking, most of childhood and adolescent growth in the U.S. is so plotted and planned. It was easy not to worry in school because what was next was always more school. Always. I worried about other things, certainly. Whether or not I’d make friends. How difficult it may or may not be. I would tell myself that I was worrying about what was next, but that wasn’t really true. There was always something more ahead. And it was easy. And over the past few years I’ve become more and more detached from that worry about what comes next. I was never less worried in my life than when I moved to Seattle from across the country and—so I’m told—that’s not an easy thing to do. At a certain point maybe it’s just that we worry less about things we can’t control and just worry more about… other things we can’t control.
I’m getting to my point, I think.
Lately I’ve been so anxious to get to the “next phase” I guess you’d call it. I am quite ready not to have roommates. I don’t dislike my roommates, but having them complicates things. I adore my job now more than ever, but not working full time is a little more complicated. Living alone, at face value, seems simpler. Not having homework and classes seems simpler. Working full time seems simpler. Not having a “significant other” seems simpler right now (the self-loathing aside). In all actuality these are probably just my impressions of a life I’ve never lived; as Palahniuk puts it in one novel, these kinds of projections are an “extension of life as we know it.” I can imagine living alone with no girlfriend and a full time job because it’s a projection of life as I know it now.
But I’m noticing (and by noticing, I mean that I just had this thought and decided to type it out on a whim) that when I think of post-academic life, in a deeper way I can’t imagine anything. It’s like my life is going to end when 19 March hits. It’s this big blank because at present it’s hard to imagine a life without homework, without class obligations. I’ve been told by friends who’ve graduated with the class I was supposed to’ve graduated with that it’s a lonely sort of life, isolated and noticeably less active (although I don’t like that word, because it’s not exactly what I mean). Less social, maybe? I don’t know.
In any case, what my point is (I think) is that for the first time in a while it’s really difficult to imagine what happens next. And I wouldn’t say that for the first time in a long time I’m worrying, because I’m not. But I might be a little bit… daunted, maybe. I don’t know if there’s an English word for this kind of trepidatious feeling. It’s the feeling that, for my entire life as I’ve known it, it’s always been pretty clear what was ahead and now that’s not as much the case.
Then again, perhaps I’m misreading the past and there were in fact times that I didn’t actually know what was next, but, now that it’s the past and not some nebulous “then” future tense, I know how the story went. And furthermore it could be that the future is cloudy to me now because I am unconsciously obscuring it because I don’t want to have to think about it for one reason or another. Long story short, I don’t think there’s a conclusion to this post. It was a fleeting dark scary thought about my own nebulous then that I couldn’t conclude for myself, that I would never realistically be able to conclude for you.
The Difficulty With Conclusion
I don’t know that I ever realized before how easy it was in the past to simply not worry about what was coming next because, traditionally speaking, most of childhood and adolescent growth in the U.S. is so plotted and planned. It was easy not to worry in school because what was next was always more school. Always. I worried about other things, certainly. Whether or not I’d make friends. How difficult it may or may not be. I would tell myself that I was worrying about what was next, but that wasn’t really true. There was always something more ahead. And it was easy. And over the past few years I’ve become more and more detached from that worry about what comes next. I was never less worried in my life than when I moved to Seattle from across the country and—so I’m told—that’s not an easy thing to do. At a certain point maybe it’s just that we worry less about things we can’t control and just worry more about… other things we can’t control.
I’m getting to my point, I think.
Lately I’ve been so anxious to get to the “next phase” I guess you’d call it. I am quite ready not to have roommates. I don’t dislike my roommates, but having them complicates things. I adore my job now more than ever, but not working full time is a little more complicated. Living alone, at face value, seems simpler. Not having homework and classes seems simpler. Working full time seems simpler. Not having a “significant other” seems simpler right now (the self-loathing aside). In all actuality these are probably just my impressions of a life I’ve never lived; as Palahniuk puts it in one novel, these kinds of projections are an “extension of life as we know it.” I can imagine living alone with no girlfriend and a full time job because it’s a projection of life as I know it now.
But I’m noticing (and by noticing, I mean that I just had this thought and decided to type it out on a whim) that when I think of post-academic life, in a deeper way I can’t imagine anything. It’s like my life is going to end when 19 March hits. It’s this big blank because at present it’s hard to imagine a life without homework, without class obligations. I’ve been told by friends who’ve graduated with the class I was supposed to’ve graduated with that it’s a lonely sort of life, isolated and noticeably less active (although I don’t like that word, because it’s not exactly what I mean). Less social, maybe? I don’t know.
In any case, what my point is (I think) is that for the first time in a while it’s really difficult to imagine what happens next. And I wouldn’t say that for the first time in a long time I’m worrying, because I’m not. But I might be a little bit… daunted, maybe. I don’t know if there’s an English word for this kind of trepidatious feeling. It’s the feeling that, for my entire life as I’ve known it, it’s always been pretty clear what was ahead and now that’s not as much the case.
Then again, perhaps I’m misreading the past and there were in fact times that I didn’t actually know what was next, but, now that it’s the past and not some nebulous “then” future tense, I know how the story went. And furthermore it could be that the future is cloudy to me now because I am unconsciously obscuring it because I don’t want to have to think about it for one reason or another. Long story short, I don’t think there’s a conclusion to this post. It was a fleeting dark scary thought about my own nebulous then that I couldn’t conclude for myself, that I would never realistically be able to conclude for you.