Post-grad status: what's next?

I graduated from college two months ago. I turned 24 on Sunday. Most people my age have settled in to their first “real” job. 9-5PM, 40-60 hours a week, salaried, living on their own, managing relationships, paying bills, all that good adulty stuff. Me? I’m grappling with this uncomfortable period in my life where I don’t know what’s coming next.

Photo by MARJAINEZ via Rookie

There is so much that compels me. I know I have the capacity to be great at anything I put my mind to (yeah, yeah, it's trite, but seriously, once you're in your mid-twenties you realize you have ALL THE POWER IN THE WORLD), but I have yet to find something that fulfills me in every way. What does that all mean? Well, there are people I admire... Tavi Gevinson, for finding a way to make her fashion blog into something more. She inspires young girls and has also created an artistic outlet for herself -- writing, singing, video-making, and now, acting. Lauren Bush, for using her strengths to help those in need. Her connections to New York’s elite have helped fuel FEED Projects, an internationally-known brand that provides meals and other forms of support for those struggling with poverty. Amanda Jane Cooper, for believing in herself and pushing fear of an unstable industry aside to follow her dreams. I went to high school with Amanda, and she is living the artist’s life, working in theater, film, and television in New York and Los Angeles.

These young women have found a way to let their passions propel them. Me? My interests keep me stuck. How could I possibly find a way to weave mine together? Fashion, theater, teaching middle schoolers, environmental sciences, social media, poverty, feminism... I feel so strongly about all of these things, but I’m not sure how to proceed. Which do I choose? Where do I go? There is no straightforward path for me now. I have to make those adulty decisions about what to do next. Save up money and move into Philadelphia by myself? Apply more aggressively to jobs in New York or D.C., regardless of my qualifications and fears? Continue my part-time job in the hopes that an appealing project or promotion is somewhere in the near future? Shoot for an unpaid internship and cross my fingers that the pieces will fall into place? 

I don’t know! This is that point in your life when people say, it's new and exciting and scary, you have the world at your fingertips, but they never tell you what comes after that initial jolt of panicked, breathless excitement. I’ll give you a hint: it’s a drawn out version of that shockwave that undulates beneath your every day, making you more and more uneasy as time passes by. It will go away eventually, sure, but when? YOU’LL NEVER KNOW AND THAT’S THE WORST.

Happy living, twenty-somethings.

xox,

Sara