I feel as if I just walked onto a train and landed here sometimes. It was a rough journey with stops and bumps, but now I’m dumped here. That’s how I feel sometimes with life. As if I can see clearly the steps I’ve taken to get here, but have this sense of being deposited here with no idea where to step next. It was always the next step, like the next stop. It was finishing my thesis, graduating college, moving to Germany, getting into school, and now that I’m here, at this stop, I don’t know where the train is going. Where am I going now? I feel as if I am just waiting on the platform now, wondering where. Do I stay here? Do I try to get a job here? Is this where it ends? It’s so disconcerting.
I start to ponder where will I go once this masters is done. What are my job prospects? And that hits like a five ton brick. It’s weighty and heavy and like an elephant sitting on my chest. Because for the first moment in my life, I don’t think I know where it goes from now. I’ve planned in my life, a lot of things, as far as life plans. And yes, they’ve changed a lot in my life, but there was also a vague sense of the plan. I always knew where the next stop was, felt a crumbling path beneath my feet till I found the one. But maybe this is, was, my first step onto grass.
It’s all about opportunities. When you come to a crossroad, you look around for the paths that are open to you. Then you choose the one that looks best, including what further opportunities it might open up. If you realize that your choice was not so great, you deal with the problems until a better opportunity comes along. The process (a.k.a. “life”) works best, if you have some confidence in it.