When we leave high school, a lot of us aren’t given too many options when it comes to what is next.

Through four years of high school, we are pushed for college, pushed to go further our education. Some decide that the armed forces are the way to go, and some go to trade schools. Whatever it is that we decide, it’s almost always planned ahead of time. We KNOW what is happening following the day we walk across the stage as seniors.

However, five years later, when I walked across a similar, yet larger stage, with way more kids than I walked with before, I left the gymnasium unaware of what was coming next. It’s a scary thought. I can’t lie and say that I had gone looking for jobs and I had all of these interviews lined up because I hadn’t. All through college I had a stable job. Yeah, it was a serving job, but I made really good money and with five years of employment, I have kind of worked my way up to totem pole in seniority. I wasn’t ready to give it up. I was asking myself..do I have to?

So, what's next??

I know that I’m not the only one who asked that question after graduation day. We are all so excited to finally be done. No more 8 a.m. classes, no more homework, no more sleepless nights studying for finals. We finally made it, but at this point in life, for once, things aren’t planned for us. Now it’s not a summer vacation, its life.

What, exactly, is life??

It didn’t hit me that I had graduated until the fall when classes were starting back up. I went to work on a Monday morning with that sick feeling in my stomach because I had skipped class. Now I have to have that awkward talk with my professor as to why I wasn’t in attendance and I am actually going to have to track my other absences to make sure I don’t fail the class. It was at that moment that I realized I don’t have to do that. And I sat back and wondered what I was doing. Where should I be?

If there is any time that is more stressful and more complicated, it is life after college. Finding a career isn’t easy. Everywhere you go wants you to have experience, but no one will hire you to help you get that experience. To make matters worse, I’m an art major. EVERYTHING IS BASED ON EXPERIENCE. But I don’t know if I want to go work for someone else. I kind of just want to do my own thing. See where it takes me.

The worst is family get-togethers. All of my aunts and uncles ask the famous question, “So, what are you doing now? Are you getting a photography job? Are you moving? Do you plan on starting your own business?” And they ask them all at the same time like I can remember it all and answer them in order.

Well, I hate to tell you all, it’s not that simple. I’m not currently out PUSHING to find another job, because I’m doing great where I’m at. Yeah, I’m in between doing 8 million different things, but I don’t know exactly where I want to be yet and I don’t want to lock myself down somewhere that might not be for me. I don’t know exactly the path I want to take. And that’s completely okay. There is no time limit on when I need to have a “career”. Who knows, I might have already found a career in moving up for the company I have been working for all this time. I know that if I did that, I wouldn’t be using my degree, but that seems to be a common thing nowadays. Wengo to school and end up falling into another field of work that suits us just as well.

I know I have gone back and forth in this and I haven’t really made a clear point yet. So sorry. But honestly, my point is that, life after college is difficult. It isn’t cookie cutter and for the first time in 23 years, things aren’t laid out for us. We aren’t told what we are supposed to do or where exactly we are supposed to go.

Now is the time for us to live for ourselves and do what we truly want to do. For me, that is working 60-80 hours a week and spending what time I have to hang out with my dog and my boyfriend, and I am totally okay with that. It is weird waking up with nothing REALLY TO DO tomorrow. It is stressful, scary, and relaxing. But I think I have discovered that that is life.