So, at the age of 21 (physical age, not mental age) i am facing my last few weeks of life as a University Student. That has been my title, my identity, my place in the world, for three years now. Three years of toil, effort, headaches and plenty of procrastination alongside successes, failures, let-downs, hangover's, first's, and now, lastly, i am graduating. I am a 'graduand' as it says on my 'Guide to Graduation 2012'.
I keep going back to the joke, the Mayan calendar foretelling that 2012 will witness the end of the world, as we know it. Well, ironic enough, it does represent the end of my world, as i know it. The end of what has been routine, standard, my purpose, even in the times i wasn't writing an essay; it was always weighing on my mind. The future, the achievement's i was working toward, diligently, consistently, full of arrogance and yet total lack of self-belief. When i say arrogant, i mean, i often told myself 'this will be a piece of piss', a walk in the park, i will ace it. But more often than not i would reach a point during a challenge (what i liked to view essay writing as, a challenge, a game) that i would lose interest, focus, or confidence in myself. Yet i always kept going, determined, looking at how long i had before hand-in, how long i then had to tidy and perfect what i had produced. Eventually, i would be mildly happy with my efforts and so would come the triumphant moment of printing out the work, stapling the corner, affixing the cover sheet, and handing it in.
This routine has been my way of life. Awaiting the next essay, the next challenge, the next due date. Now, what? The future is 100% unknown. Which excites me in some ways, and absolutely petrifies me in other ways. I am someone who thrives on routine. I often live by day by timings; i have to be awake before a certain hour, eat lunch at a certain hour, do certain things a specific way (i think i am probably on the asperger's spectrum, or OCD, or just actually quite normal most likely). But now, i will have endless time. Days may roll into one another and i may not notice a difference. And what about my future job, career, life goal blah blah blah. WHO KNOWS. I certainly do not. All i know is my plans for the next two month's, and even then, i feel a sense of loss, bewilderment, numbness. It's a very strange feeling for me, not knowing, not being able to see the future mapped out, to the extent i have been able to before.
It's a very strange feeling indeed.
