What I've Needed to Come to Terms With...

As a recent college graduate, I can't say I wasn't daunted by entering the "real world," a place I've only seen through the actions of my parents. My final year as a undergrad was focused on pushing my attention toward school projects and activities. May and graduation was looming, but I pretended like it had anything to do with me. I was looking at other people graduating with me, hearing their plans, which included travel, jobs lined up and graduate school and here I was - lost as to what I wanted to do and afraid for the future. It was bad enough that I stayed an extra year, to get a second degree in another field that I loved to death, which only increased my student loan debt, but I really didn't care. It's been two months since I've graduated and now I feel paralyzed by my student loan debt, a perceived obstacle clinging onto my back, just out of sight, but never out of mind.

The stress these past two months is worse than any semester I've had in college. It's not because of the process of applying for job, because I like staying busy, it's the emotional work and energy put into my daily activities and interactions with others. I'm not used to feeling inadequate, as I consider myself to be an extremely confident and capable person. I know how to hold my own in stressful and time restricting situations. I've been comparing myself to others (people I graduated high school and college with and even strangers I follow on some social media platforms), which I told myself to never do because it's unproductive and doesn't produce any good feelings.

I feel like I'm the only one feeling this way, and it doesn't help that the people around me keep asking me where I applied for jobs, what am I doing next, and how is anthropology and writing going to find me a job? I, for one, liked college; I got comfortable with the format and environment. My last month of college as an undergrad, reminded me of the anxiety I felt when graduating high school, but school is school and that is something I know. Unlike entering the job force and "adulthood" it is unfamiliar to me even though I have job and internship experience, not mention excelling academically, I feel inadequate and not experienced enough for every position I looked at.

But then I have these moments when I'm my old self again, the optimistic, confident and ambitious girl where I ask myself, "How the hell can you know.... How the hell can you know if you're experienced enough if you don't experience it?" I realize I'm in a perpetual state of self-deprecation, pessimism and all around bad feelings and energy. There are times when I have to tell myself, "Girl, if you don't be quiet," because I know I'm good at whatever job I take, even when I make mistakes I own up to them and intend to do better. It took the past couple of days to realize that the negative feelings pent up inside of me aren't real. They aren't a reflection of anything I am and am I not, of anything I have or don't have because I know best what my strengths, weaknesses, goals and desires are. And the only thing that has been holding me back is fear, fear for something that is coming to me regardless of whether I'm ready for it or not, so I might as well meet it halfway.