What Now
So this past weekend I finally finished up with school and graduated. It only took me twenty some years to do it too. Now that I’m on the verge of sitting in the middle of my late thirties I started thinking about what I am going to do with my future. I know what you’re thinking, I got a degree now why not go into what I was studying? Well being the genius I am I graduated with a degree that doesn’t come with the prospects of ever really being financially fulfilling; I graduated with a degree in Creative Writing. I know, what was I thinking going back to school this late in the game only to get a degree in something that really isn’t a career. Well it can be you just have to work a long time before it becomes one.
Anyway, I do have a full-time job already lined up starting next week with a great company and wonderful staff. It’s the employer who I have been working for part-time during my college days and they actually agreed to hire me on full-time. This is a great weight of my back with the worrying I was doing as my graduation day neared, but to be honest I’m not the most excited. Like I said the company and people are great, I’m just not completely sure if it’s right for me.
I went to school to write and what I’ll be doing at my current job is the farthest from writing I can get. Sure I’ll be staring at a computer screen all day with a keyboard at my fingertips and words typed onto the screen, but I won’t be nimbly pressing the keys creating stories for others to enjoy. I’ll be making sure customers are happy and our company keeps its good name.
I know I can’t complain because at least I have a job after graduating and that I’ll finally be able to pull my own weight when it comes to our household bills, but I still sit here and think how I didn’t go back to school to become an office jockey. I went back to school so I could do what I wanted to do with my life. Yes, of course I know I need to make things happen and I need to get myself out there amongst other writers struggling to make it and that I need to have an income in order to live even if it’s not what I want to do, but I also feel I should at least be able to enjoy my day to day life.
Now that school is done and I’ll have more free time in the evenings I can take the time to work on my novel and other stories that I’ve often put on the back burner to make sure I got my homework done first. I’ll be able to keep pushing my story and really see where it is going as I am able to devote more time and energy to it, but I’ll still have to wake up every morning, grab my cup of coffee and head off to the office to stare at a screen with programs running that make no sense to me at all.
I’m not looking forward to what the real world has in store for me and I worry that little by little, as I continue going in and doing the eight hour shifts, I’ll slowly forget the novel I’m working on or the short stories I had planned on sending out to publishers and eventually I’ll become some office drone plopping myself in front of the same monitor day in and day out just waiting for the inevitable death to come and take me away.
