Current Facebook status: "when did my 4-year plan become my 9-month plan..."
Currently, there are 3 people who "like" it and 5 comments, one comment being mine. I needed to clarify to someone that I am not in fact pregnant. The comments following mine are my friends teasing me that I'm pregnant, asking if the expected is to be a boy or girl. Ignorant and naive as it might sound, I honestly did not even put the two together: 9-month and pregnancy. It’s a legitimate conclusion. Today, actually I went to my childhood best friend’s baby shower. Several of my childhood friends have babies already. We are in that decade of marriage and children, believe it or not. But I digress. I was simply talking about my senior year of college, which just happens to be 9-months long.
9 months left of college…9 months. Wait, what? How? WHEN? That’s like a baby in the making, literally.
Lately, I have done a lot of thinking about “Real Life” shiz, aka post-grad plans. And I’m not the only one. Everyone and their moms (literally) talks about it. I’ve been in California for a little bit over a month, and have had the opportunities to catch-up with family, family friends, friends, and old friends I haven’t seen in years. I can’t recall a single conversation that didn’t bring up the topic of what I plan (rather, hope) to do after graduation. And if the person I was talking to was also a college senior, we would proceed to talk about how we couldn’t believe that we were talking about this already. Words like crazy, scary, insane, ridiculous, unsure, and exciting were used.
It’s kind of like being pregnant, not that I would know, but it seems like the dialogue could run in the same vein. It’s “crazy” to think about having a kid because weren’t we just kids yesterday? It’s “crazy” to think about what we’ll be doing after college because didn't we just begin yesterday? It’s “scary” to think about raising a kid in this chaotic world, not to mention the parental fears of harmful biological development. It’s “scary” to think about post-grad plans because we have to think of expenses, relationships, living situations, finding jobs in this recession, and that application process that brings us nightmarish memories from the last time we held senior status…
But in all, it’s “exciting” right?
To think of the opportunities, the possibilities of what you could be doing; of where you’ll be; of what your friends will be doing and where they’ll be…but more than the “what” and “where” is the “how,” the process of how we will end up doing what, where.
How.
An aside, well kinda.
2 random facts about myself:
1. I can’t wait to be pregnant (well, I can; five years at minimum). When I say this, people tend to freak out, or wonder why. They say I’ll feel like crap and that I’ll get stretch marks; but that doesn’t even really cross my mind. I can’t wait to physically be pregnant. Like to think that a human being is growing and developing in my stomach seems to be truly beautiful and wonderful. I’ll take the monthly period, the 9-months of pregnancy, and the couple hours of terrible pain during labor and delivery for the irreplaceable feeling.
2. People at Stanford hate winter quarter. They say it’s the “worst” quarter because it is the most academically demanding, when most of the summer internship and grants applications are due, and “the weather sucks.” In all honesty though, it’s my favorite quarter at Stanford. The reasons of why it is the “worst” is pretty accurate, but at the same time, it’s the quarter that I discovered the most about myself and the people around me in a different way. You learn about how long someone spent on an application, how stressed (s)he is about his/her interviews, and how little sleep they’ve had in the last 3 weeks. In turn, you share your similar, pathetic story of the multiple applications for the summer internships, or that grant proposal you’re writing. During these conversations though, I learn the most about my friends’ passions and interests, what they want to do, and what career direction they want to take. Because really, people would not waste hours working on something they didn’t want or truly care about (or at least I would hope so.)
So back to the How…
This whole process of supposedly “figuring out Real Life” is in my opinion, the best part. It can be terrible and stressful at times, but in all, it’s exciting…it’s more than that actually…it brings life; it breathes life into us; it has the potential to breathe life into those around us.
(--even at times when you think you’re dying as you study for that one test that stands between you and grad school, or life is being sucked out of you as work on yet another application essay)
With each experience comes the potential for a better understanding of who you are, who you are becoming, who you want to be, and who you can be.
Seriously exciting stuff, eh?
The reigning question in the air of what we’re going to do next, will be an answer that is simultaneously fuzzy and crystal clear…but that’s fine. (I think it’ll be a question that I ask throughout my entire life.)
It's your baby, and you have the rest of your fake-and-real life to let it grow and develop. Yours. And in the end, if you let it be what it can be, you’ll always think it’s beautiful, even if everyone thinks it’s ugly as… :)
Oh, hey Real Life.
Oh, hey Baby.
Note: I still got a lot of growing up to do.
and it's beyond exciting.
