my quest towards adulthood has begun.

over the past two weeks, i have begun the process of visiting colleges and trying to decide which one i will give four years’ salary to, as well as trying to decide what i am going to do at that school that will evolve into the career i will hold for the rest of my life. when i was younger, especially as a freshman in high school, i always thought this would be easy. i thought that the right college would just pop out at me from one of their letters, and i would just know, or something like that. and i was always sure that i would know when the time came which niche i would settle into for the rest of my life.

but then again, kids are stupid.

i have only visited both colleges, and i loved both of them, but for completely different reasons. st. john fisher had the perfect “everybody here’s a rockstar” attitude, and everything on campus was shiny and new (kind of pathetic how shinyness is going to affect which college i go to eh?). it was that laid-back, everybody knows everybody atmosphere that made me feel that st. john fisher was easily a place i could live at for four years. nazareth, however, had the perfect education system for me, allowing me to be certified as a high school teacher while at the same time doing a double major in english and psychology or philosophy. that amount of education for that price tag is pretty impressive, and more than enough reason to go to nazareth.

but even though both schools had their merits, one’s shortcomings were another’s strengths, making it so hard to choose between the two.

but even more important than the question of where, is the question of what. as a junior in high school, i always assumed that i would have it all figured out by now. i always thought that by the time i had to start finding a place to further educate myself for four years, i would know what i would educate myself about. to be honest, i haven’t the slightest idea what i want to do. i want to do so much, but when i start to think about doing that same thing for forty years, i start to think… umm, maybe this isn’t for me. and so i just move from major to major, never settling, always trying to figure out where i belong in the adult world. and the fact that i don’t know scares the hell out of me.

as i sit in the auditoriums during my college visit, i chew on the end of the free pen they gave me, and have a silent panic attack. i hate going into things unprepared, and going to college as an undeclared major just seems lazy to me. i want to know where i’m going before i leave, and not knowing makes me freak out unlike anything else.

i wish that i could just get an answer out of nowhere, just some voice telling me, “Clinton, do this…”. while the idea of voices just speaking to me inside my head is a little weird i’ll admit, i can’t help but wish that it would happen, just to take the weight of the decision off of my back.

my future freaks me out, simply because i don’t know what it holds. i hate not knowing what i want to do with my life, and i hate not knowing where i’m going to do that. i know that just babbling on about it isn’t going to help much, but at least it makes me feel better.

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