Nope. I don't have it all together.

Remember how much I was panicking the night before graduation? You know, less than six months ago?

Yeah. Me too.

Today, at the behest of my dear friend Carlie, I revisited my school's campus to catch a bite of lunch and have a long awesome conversation, and then after that I met up with my friend Megan in the Union to have another long awesome conversation.

Coming up on the Commons (which is an area with fountains and pretty views) I was already starting to feel weird. I've chosen to compare this to feeling how Frodo felt when he returned from the Quest and came back to the Shire; because geeky analogies are the things that I do. It didn't feel like home, anymore, and that was a horribly sad realization. Especially because those four years are kind of surrounded in a glow of the love and support of people that have changed my life. Even with my marriage, college was good. Every corner--even the stupid parking-pass-necessary-parking lots--has some fantastic memories.

Nostalgia and nausea have always sort of gone hand in hand for me, because once I start missing the past, I start feeling kind of ill, because it's gone, gone, gone. There's no going back, to coin a cliche. So I started feeling a little empty and irrelevant, because I in no way shape or form have even begun to figure my life out.

This was only amplified when my friend Megan said in passing: "I've been thinking about when to talk to my advisors about when I should start applying for jobs" and I immediately started kicking my past self as someone who is currently basically unemployed for having had so much stubborn, intense anxiety related to job-searching and--still having it, if I'm being totally honest.

And then as I was walking back to my car, I ran into another friend, Marya, who is (like me) visiting the campus and the people one last time before she goes off to another country to like, work and be cool and stuff. We ended up chatting for a while, which was nice, but one part of the conversation in particular really kind of jangled the kaleidoscope of my brain.

She had met people in Sweden (where she had been working) who had only just started college at the age I am now (23). They all told her, "You've got plenty of time."

As much as I don't want to waste time, sometimes I feel like I have. Being clinically depressed after graduation is probably fairly common, especially among writers/most artists, where you're almost guaranteed to have some sort of mental health quirk if you pursue a career in (gasp) culture instead of STEM (which is culture, but really, guys, the arts are important too; and I'll elaborate on that at a later time), and I'm certainly not immune. I've sort of been rendered immobile, as silly as it sounds; with school ending and friends leaving and not having the same kind of purpose. I'm good at being a student. I'm not so sure I'm quite that good at being a person. I mean, obviously, if I was good at being a person, I would have started looking for jobs before my first semester senior year had ended. I would have not been stubborn or let my anxiety get the better of me. And I certainly wouldn't be feeling invisible.

But what she said got me thinking. Maybe I did the best I could with what I had. I certainly could have done better. There's no denying that. But I also could have done much, much worse. And I'm pretty sure I'll figure out how to at least pretend like I'm an adult fairly soon; therapy should help with that, and also, I'm super tired of being stuck. Granted, the thought of getting un-stuck scares the hell out of me, because I don't know where to start, but I want to.

So no. I don't have it all together. I'm almost twenty three, and I'm still kind of confused about my life. But I'm starting to think that's okay, because all I have to do is hit rock bottom and then I'll write a seven-part book series that ends up being wildly popular.

Wait. no. That's JK Rowling. I've confused myself with JK Rowling.

But, I mean, the future really could hold anything. I'm not ruling it out.