Life planning: Wait, what?!

So we go to elementary school, then middle school, then high school, then [usually] college, then we graduate, get big boy/girl jobs, get married, have babies, and live happily ever after....right?

HA. Not at all, folks...

Ok, I guess some people end up doing that. And good for them, if they've got their lives figured out at such a routinely convenient age. But then there's the rest of the us who have no freaking clue what we want to do with our lives. We have no clue where we want to go. I say we because I know I'm not alone in this feeling.

But seriously. I'm graduating in under two months and I have no clue what is going to happen! When I was a special education major, my plan was exactly the one I started this post with. I was going to student teach and get a full time teaching job easily, etc. But now... I feel like I have no goals. I'm so checked out of school right now. I need to just finish it off, but it is getting to be more and more difficult to find motivation to do that! I think I want to be a counselor. But I can't actually do that until I have a Master's degree. And I can't get a Master's until I can afford it. And I can't afford it until my undergrad debt (heaps and heaps of it) is paid off. And the undergrad debt can't get paid off until I have a [good enough] job. And I can't have a good enough job until I get experience...and so on, and so on. *sigh* What a cycle, right?

Kayla and I were just talking about this today, how it's crazy that people/ society/ culture expects people to just automatically know what we want to do "for the rest of our lives"! That's ridiculous. How could anyone possibly know what they want in the rest of life when they're only 22/23 years old? There are still at least ~60+ years left in life to figure that out. Why do we have to rush it? Well, I guess because we have bills to pay and debt to pay off...and many times kids to take care of, bla bla bla.

Growing up and being the real world is so scary! I'm seriously going to miss the whole college environment. I won't miss the money, boring classes, tests, etc. But MAN, I'll miss seeing people I know everywhere- literally- everywhere I go, I know someone! I'll miss waking up late, and staying up late. I'll miss walking everywhere. I'll miss having spontaneous hang out times/ coffee/ lunch/ parties with people. It's so great! I'm so thankful for having met so many wonderful people here, and I hope to stay in touch with them for years and years to come as well. :)

So I guess for now...only time will tell what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to go. First things first is finishing these damn classes... Ugh. :P So bored. Haha. Then I'll graduate. Then I'll be thrown into the real world. Eek!

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." -- C.S. Lewis

“For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(all photos from my pinterest)

Graduation: The first step

Wow. So I just filled out my graduation application. It's kind of weird. It doesn't actually feel like I'll be graduating. Once upon a time, I had a plan for my life. I was going to graduate with a degree in Special Education, minor in Spanish, go on to teach, pay off my debt, get married, have a family maybe, settle down... You all know the drill.

Then I found out I wasn't going to be able to afford to finish my last two semesters of the Special Education program. There was no way around it, unless I just randomly came up with a couple grand to pay for it. Ha, like that'd be possible working at a food service job ~20 hours a week. I like to take things that life throws at me as a sort of...lesson. Or a guide. Like, if something's not going to work out, life will let me know in the most unexpected ways possible! Throughout the last bit of my classes, even before I knew I couldn't finish with that degree, in the SPED program, I started drifting from the idea of being a teacher. I didn't like the bureaucracy of the education system here in the US. I couldn't stand any of the people I would be working with. Oh, and I'm the polar opposite of a morning person. (So weird how most teachers are those people that just get up at 5am and be like, "Oh morning how I love thee! I'm going on a run before work!" All happy and dandy... Yea, NOT me. At all. I hate mornings.) So, once I found out I couldn't finish with the program, I started accepting the idea of doing something else with my life.

This sounds very simple and uncomplicated. But let me tell you, it was not. This last semester was extremely difficult for me. Literally my whole life, for 20 years, I had always dreamt that I would just be a teacher. And that was that. So having to change that idea, having to change my entire plan and goal in life because I couldn't afford the degree, that hurt. It was depressing. I felt like I my whole life and school career had been a waste. What had I been doing all 4 years here? Why is college so damn expensive? Why should I have to suffer and not fulfill my dreams like I planned because our country doesn't value higher education enough to lower tuition? What's the point of even finishing school now that I have no effing clue what to do? What is going to happen now?

Obviously, as I'm sure I've stated in previous posts, I changed my major to just Professional Studies BA, with a minor in Child Advocacy Studies and Spanish. Prof. Studies is basically nothing... It's meant for people who are going to get their Master's or Ph.D.

Sooo, my plan is to go to grad school and get my MA in Counseling. I was going to go right away after college, but I just don't feel comfortable yet. It doesn't seem like the right thing to do right now. I don't know EXACTLY what I want to do yet with my life. So going into Counseling is a good step, but what emphasis would I want? Now that I had to switch majors, there are so many unexplored things in the world that I haven't yet learned about. I've been so forced to just think on the education path of life, that's all I know. So now, do I want to work in a school still? Do I want to eventually go back and get a teaching degree? Do I just want to aid? Do I want to work in a hospital? A jail? WHO KNOWS.

The world is my oyster. Whatever that means, right? But man oh man, I am so scared. I've always had a plan. I've always thought I knew what would happen in my life. But at this point right now, I have no flippin' clue. I do know that I want to work with troubled teens. That is, after all, the main reason I went into Special Education in the first place. Other than that, nooo clue what's going to happen. No clue where I'll go. No clue if I want to "settle down" or just roam this beautiful Earth with a special someone... Life is crazy. We can't predict it. Although I wish I could, so much.

So I'm graduating. But honestly, I just feel like I haven't accomplished anything. What do I have to show for my 5 years of being here? A BA in Prof. Studies... Woo. I mean I know I should be more positive because many people don't get to graduate college. (You know a lot of people go to college for seven years. I know, they're called doctors. -- haha, I love Tommy Boy) But now all I have is entirely too much debt, and no idea as to how I'll pay it off before I'm dead. I wish I had gone to school part time all 5 years so I wouldn't have had to take out so many loans. It's just ridiculous how expensive college is! That's not okay! But that's a whole other tangent...

Anyway. That's my life. I don't know what's going to happen. And planning the future, as I've learned, just doesn't work out. So I gotta hang on and enjoy the rest of the ride...also known us undergraduate school. ;)

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.” -- Anaïs Nin

~

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber