Limbo

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I feel as if I've reached some kind of turning point in my life, and now find myself standing between everything that's happened to me before this point and everything that I might do in the future. I have a couple theories regarding how this has come to pass. First, my best friend recently graduated from college and now faces a terrifyingly undefined existence in the wake of finishing school. This will be the first autumn in memory that he has not returned to school, and has nothing else to do but search for a job and try to establish some financial security and stability. In two years, it's possible that I'll be facing the same fate, and that realization brought about another - that soon the path laid out for me long ago by parents and teachers will be coming to an end, and I'll be left in sole custody of my life. Actually, it's more likely that I've had sole custody of my life for some time now, but I'd never before now really considered the freedom I have to choose. I'd taken school and grades and the necessity for achievement for granted for so long that I never looked beyond the next requirement, the next step. It's like I've been walking down the road staring at my feet and now suddenly I look up and don't know how I've gotten here, or where I am. That realization, brought about by my friend's precarious position, is part of the disconnect I feel now. Another contributing factor has to be my first trip out of the country, which the stark juxtaposition against my familiar surroundings has rendered almost dream-like in my memory. I remember being there, but those experiences seem so out of sync with my life before and since that I hardly believe it happened. However, the perspective that I gained as a result of being so far away from the familiar reinforced my awareness of the potential of my life and reminded me that there is so much in this world to do that I had never before considered doing.

Home suddenly feels much smaller, and as I wait to return to school with a new sense of purpose, I feel caught in this limbo between my whole life until now, and the vast possibilities of the future. Terrifying, wonderful possibilities.