Graduation anxieties
Hi Forum!
So, I'm not entirely sure if this is the right forum for this entry, but it is certainly tied to school (for me, at least).
I'm about to finish a two-year graduate program and I just started freaking out about it. I have a job and housing and all of those necessities lined up, but there are some historic anxieties that I'm working through.
The last time I graduated (from undergrad), I went to great lengths to change everything about myself. I accepted a job far from home (with no support system around), broke up with a long-term girlfriend and turned myself into, for lack of a better term, an uber hippie. I went through a similar transformation when I graduated high school (Hawaiian-shirt- and colored glasses-wearing non-conformist -> college hipster) middle school to high school (alien-loving geek -> grungy Nirvana fan) and even elementary school to middle school (awkward kid -> awkward goth... kid)
Luckily, my sense of self is far more in tact than it was 7 years ago (my last graduation), but I now feel an urge to reinvent myself again. With a wedding on the horizon too, I feel like there's a lot that's going to be changing and a lot more I would give up in the process...
Does anyone else get these feelings?
How do other people deal with these issues?
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lotuspuppy
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Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 995
Location: On a journey to the center of the mind
I understand completely what you mean. I have changed so much since my two years that I have graduated college, but it took me a very long time to accept those changes. I was prone to viewing myself as a failure for a very long time. It just turned out that the things I thought I was once interested in are not appealing to me anymore.
I am off to grad school in a bit, and I expect change again. For instance, I am a lifelong Northerner, but I'm going to school in a major Southern city. I am actually delighted how much I like the South, and expect Southern culture will change me. I also plan to start online dating, which I have never done before. My studies will ressurrect some long dormant traits, like my extreme workaholism (which I never really did in my career, funny enough). Then again, maybe I will become slacker dude. It is hard to say with certainty, but I have learned not to oppose changes in myself. I am scared s**tless about what may happen, but I control that to observe the changing environment around me.
I am learning those that are happiest in life are those that can just go with the flow. Coming from an Italian American family of blue collar entrepreneurs, I interpreted "going with the flow" as an acceptance of defeat. It's not. It's just playing the hand you are dealt. It is fine to worry about changes, and I am glad you see them as an opportunity of sorts.