Things I thought I'd have figured out by now

In the past few months, I've realised something.  I'm 23 years old and I have no idea what I want to do with my life.  

I'm afraid I'm not exaggerating.  I went into my graduate program in Modern European Studies feeling absolutely positive that I wanted to get a PhD and live out my days in an ivy tower, writing books and teaching History at a (preferably small, liberal arts) college.  Sometime in the past year, though, that plan has fallen away.  As a graduate student at a big research university, I found myself a lot more exposed - and sometimes caught in the crossfire of - academic politics than I had as an undergrad; plus, the grim reality of getting a job post-doctorate in an increasingly competitive and insecure industry also began to set in.

So I decided, with some certainty, that I didn't want to go into academia after all.  That clarity didn't come quickly; in fact, it was only after an extended period of humming, hawing, and chastising myself for a lack of engagement with my work.  At the time I thought I was just being lazy!  I really only finally settled on the idea this past summer when, for the first time since I started kindergarten, I never missed school for one moment of my break.

To be fair, it was a really great summer.

Here's the thing, though:  all of my planning and goals and work since I declared a History major in college had all been geared towards this end.  So what the heck now?  There isn't really an answer that seems satisfactory to me.  I sit down every day with my little black notebook - it's on my person at all times - and I write out whatever is in my head.  I write lists of things to do, of what inspires me, and of what makes me happy.  I write out what I like to do and try to come up with a career path which could integrate them all, but nothing jumps out to me as the answer.  In the meantime, I'm working two (soon to be three) part-time jobs.  I'm finishing my M.A., too, because I'm no quitter and because I actually enjoy the work more again now that I can tell myself that my entire life doesn't ride on it.

For the first time in my life, I have absolutely no idea where I'll be in a year.  What's more, I'm not really working towards any goal other than my own education, self-discovery, and happiness -- and hopefully a little financial solvency.  For a girl who likes to plan everything out in her little black notebook, that's pretty frightening.

I might be alone in this.  I might be completely shirking my responsibility to get serious with my life.  I might be every banal cliche of a millennial you've ever heard.  Right now, though, it doesn't feel that way.  It feels like for the first time in a long time I know that each new step I take - even if it takes me further away from my old plans - is probably a step towards whatever it is that I'm really supposed to be doing.