Leap Before You Look: How I’m Thousands of Dollars in Debt and I Still Have No Idea What the Hell I’m Doing with My Life

            I tend to not think things through before doing them.

Which, if you’ve met me, sounds like an untrue statement, because I also think about things way too much, and I like planning. I don’t like planning so much as I like doing, apparently. Planning takes too long, and by the time I’m done planning I’ve changed my mind half a dozen times. Sometimes this is good. With writing and designing, the first ideas aren’t always the best, and you have to go through 8 or 10 drafts before you get to something that’s really solid. I clearly don’t have a problem planning out a story and editing it, and editing it, and editing it, and editing it, until it’s virtually unrecognizable from its original inception. At the same time, I tend to latch on to an idea too quickly and get myself in trouble (hence why I keep referencing the Great Crisis of Last Month when I couldn’t execute all the brilliant ideas I was having).

This is the same me that went “It’s time to get an eyebrow piercing!” without doing any research (side note: nothing bad happened, but if you’re not in the habit of getting holes poked in your face like I seem to be, please, please do research. I just ended up having to wait for two hours for a piercer who it turns out does not do the kind of piercing I wanted and I had to book an appointment with someone else for a later date).

This is the same me that went “It’s time to go to college!” in June of 2018 after four years of going “yeah, that’s probably a thing I should do at some point”, and two weeks later I was enrolled in the Graphic Arts and Design program at Keiser University.

Do I regret it? Depends on the day.

I mean this both about the eyebrow piercing and college, though I’ve only had the piercing for two weeks. Is this just the anxiety, depression, and enormous weight of the existential dread of the future talking? Probably. Maybe.

But if I wasn’t like this, I don’t think I would have gone to college at all.

I went through several career path ideas before “settling” on graphic designer, including but not limited to: actor, makeup artist, illustrator, mortician, and doll customizer (what would be known as a faceup artist in the community). Truthfully, I had never considered graphic design until I got a Keiser pamphlet in the mail. Lightbulbs started flashing in my brain. This was something I could do, that I knew I could be halfway decent at, and it would be a different kind of creative than the creative I used for writing or customizing dolls, so I wouldn’t use up all my creative energy at work. Yes, this was my logic. After three years of college, I have determined this is not how this works. Energy is energy, and if I’m working full time, even if I’m not using “the same kind of creative”, I will not have the energy to spend on the kind of fun projects that really make my life worthwhile. I know me. I’m all or nothing. I suck at being invested in two things at once. I’m good at time management, but I’m simultaneously terrible at setting aside time to like…actually take care of myself. I barely ate last month and it was terrible. 10/10 DON’T recommend.

That’s part of why it’s taken me so long to complete this degree. I’m part-time, so that meant I had a month or two off every two or three classes. Yeah, things would probably be different if I had done everything full time, but also…I might not be here. Like, alive, or on the same continent…I don’t know which. I’m dramatic, and emotional, and I feel like the world is falling apart when I forget to listen to music for two days. I needed those breaks. It’s not the best way to do it, probably, but I was never known for that. I needed that space, and that time, to do the things that are important to me. Unfortunately, that also gave me a lot more time to think.

I am not the same person that I was when I started this degree. I realized that I’m not a woman, I’m nonbinary, and I’m asexual. I left Christianity and now I’m a Pantheist. I finally got to learn about evolution. I read Harry Potter for the first time, and really only got to truly enjoy it for a short while before J.K. Rowling said no trans rights (you know who DID say trans rights? Star Trek, finally. Star Trek said trans rights, and yeah, that’s also a thing I got way into after starting college. Star Trek and trans rights). We’ve also now been through an ongoing global pandemic, which is sure to change even the most resilient of us in ways we can’t anticipate.

This isn’t a coming out post. Although, I suspect some of this is new information to many of you reading this, as we’ve never really gotten to know each other. This isn’t even a post about how much I want to be a writer, because I’m pretty sure I already made that post back in April, but it ties into it. One of those many realizations I had throughout the long toiling years of college and the entirety of the pandemic hit me over, and over again, like standing in the ocean up to your chest and being slapped in the face with waves until you can’t stand up anymore. I just want to write.

But that’s not what I went to college for. I went to college for Graphic Arts and Design. So, I have to be a graphic designer…right? Well, no, I don’t have to do or be anything. Would it be smart and beneficial to jump on the search for a full-time graphic design job and absolutely wow the world with my amazing ideas and skills? Probably. But as I’ve established, that’s not how I do things around here.

I’m terrified. Of either option, really. Trying to find a new job with a degree my imposter syndrome tells me I don’t deserve is scary as hell. Not doing that, and publishing my first book to try to make a decent earning from it is even scarier. Nonetheless, I’m choosing that option. I’m so scared that no one is going to want to read what I have to say (that’s nothing new), or maybe they will but I’ll be so bad at marketing it and myself that no one will even know that it or I exist (that’s not new, either).

That’s the leap I’m taking. I’m going to do my research, and plan thoroughly, and maybe it will take so long I’ll change my mind. I don’t know. But at this point in my life, everything I’ve gone through, every decision I’ve made has led to here, and my gut is telling me this is the right decision to make no matter how scared I am of failing. The well being of my soul, if I believed in souls, depends on being able to devote myself to writing and storytelling, to bringing the kind of LGBTQ+ representation we deserve to the world. I’ve spent too many nights crying on the living room floor not to take this chance.

And it’s not as if my graphic design degree will be worthless. I’m going to save myself a whole heck of a lot of money when it comes to cover design and formatting, and being able to build a website and things like that by doing it myself. Yes, even the things I learned about marketing will come in handy. Although, I may need to take five or eight more classes on it just to convince myself it won’t be the death of me.

So, despite the title of this post, I do have some semblance of an idea of what I’m doing with my life. I just don’t know if it’s going to work. Or what to do with myself if it doesn’t. Cry, I guess. Either way, this is the last week of my last class in the graphic design program, and then I have two biology classes for some reason, and then I graduate.

I’m ready…and I’m not.