I am having trouble sleeping. It has been going on for about a week. This is nothing new for me. I go through sleep patterns, probably like everyone else. The one constant is I am an early riser, but whether that means 5:30 in the morning or 3:30 in the morning is where the pattern emerges. Today it was 2:30 in the morning. It’s funny, but I always worry about what I am going to do until I have to leave and somehow my time always flies. Just look at this blog. I meant to write it around 4:00 and it is already 8:00. Since 2:30, I watched an episode of Orange is the New Black, made rice and beans for the coming week, meditated, wrote, answered emails, got ready, ate, and did a crossword. Despite lack of sleep, my energy level has been high (and that is WITHOUT any additional caffeine).
So, what is causing this “new” pattern? I am pretty positive it is all the changes in my life with the summer schedule – internship, job, and lack of school to occupy my brain. Now that I don’t have that constant gnawing in the back of my head that I need to be writing or reading something, the constant gnawing has turned to thoughts of my future. I will be finished with my degree in December, and then what? Where will I want to live? Where will I work? More importantly, what do I want to do? And once I figure that out, where should I apply? It is kind of funny to me as I look at these questions and remember what I have told countless people based on my experiences and the experience of others. I have said, “You don’t need to know exactly what you want to do. For most folks, finding the one right occupation is just not realistic. It is just about finding what is right for you NOW and going from there.”
I remember when I went to see my first career counselor (a free session at the Skokie Public Library) and she told me her path to becoming a career counselor at the age of 50. It took her 50 years to discover her passion, but had she not worked her previous jobs, she never would have come to be a career counselor. I still would love to know the one right job for me, but even if I found it, what’s to say it is the right job for me for the rest of my life? I wish things were so cut and dry, black and white, but they are not.
I am writing this out as a way to purge this stuff, hoping that sharing will lead to better sleep. Purge – I just watched ‘The Purge’ last night too, by the way, which I really don’t recommend. Ethan Hawke is great and all, but man do I hope his character really died in the end.
There is this line in my book that reads: “We must be entirely honest with somebody if we are to live long or happily in this world.” My entire honesty is I want to know what is going to happen to me and in my life at every turn. I try and keep my life as contained as possible so it gives me this sense I know what is coming to me. I have rewritten the next line like four times because each time I want to say, “December is a mystery and it scares me,” something stops me. Maybe the fears of the future are not what is keeping me up at night. Truth is I don’t wake up thinking about it, but then again I don’t wake up anxious about anything. It is just that I wake up and don’t want to go back to bed. I’m like a baby who refuses to sleep and just wants to start my day. Or get burped. Probably the former rather than the latter.
Anyhow, I have no clue where I am going with this long post anymore and I need to be getting ready for work. So, as I began this portion of my blog (graduate school portion), I had hoped to capture the mood I was in and experiences I was going there, the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is my experience with the anxieties over the future, maybe, and something I am guessing I am not alone in. I just want to keep sharing so the next six months of my life don’t involve waking up at 2:30 and having more rice and beans that I would know what to do with in my lifetime.
No Matter Where Life Takes Me 