I typed this yesterday but Angelfire wasn't working. Adjust past and present tenses as necessary.
Today is a day that I will remember for a long time. And not necessarily for good reasons. It began what feels like years ago as I woke up early to go to a job interview in Charlotte. It was for an insurance sales job, and I never really thought I would take the job but I had just been applying to whatever opening that I qualified for. While the company seemed to have its act together, I had a bad feeling that I did not want to be a salesman, insurance or otherwise. It's just not what I ever saw myself doing. What complicated matters is that the insurance guy wanted me to decide about the job later that afternoon. Needless to say, I had to make a decision and quickly. Let me tell you, I'm not good about big decisions and I had been getting pretty worked up over it because I knew that I needed a job, and this one looked decent, but I had to decide that a sales career was not going to be my path.
So this lead to a serious discussion with my parents over the future- my future, to be exact. Basically, I have been putting off that decision over what I was going to do with my life for a long time. Plenty of things interested me but nothing exactly popped out in front of me. Now, without any income and turning down a potential career it seemed to be time to get more specific as to my plans and I was definitely feeling the pressure. To be honest, I don't remember a whole lot from this late morning and early afternoon, as my mind was racing the whole time. I was definitely getting worked up to the point where I wasn't sure if I would have an appetite for lunch and dinner. I haven't felt that anxious in a while and I wasn't happy about this at all.
Basically, because I need to make a decision. Because I just might have wasted four years in college. Because key actions that I needed to take a year ago did not happen and I'm paying the price for it now. Because it may be a full year until I begin any graduate school or go teach in Japan with JET. Because everyone else in my family transitioned seamlessly from school to work/graduate school. Because my first full time job is going to be tough no matter what. Because I'm not even sure if I work now what field that will be in. I couldn't even tell you if I want to work in the public or private sector. It feels like I've been coasting along for my whole adult life and currently I have nothing to show for it.
On the other hand... I'm not the only one. Many people have problems like these coming out of college. But that doesn't mean that I have to like it. The only question is, what's next?