As I’ve stated, my job has sent me to grad school and so for the ten months my only job is to be a student. This is a wonderful opportunity but a lot of work – which I expected. It’s a full grad program smashed into ten months, of course it’s going to be a ton of work. But what I hadn’t expected was the feelings it would awake in me. I guess that saying is true – no good deed goes unpunished.

I’m starting my fourth week of school and am settling into a routine that includes hours of reading each day, interrupted only to go to the gym, walk my dog, and eat. Otherwise, I’m glued to the books or to my laptop. Last week, after a particularly stressful week, one where I wondered what the next step in my career would be, where I would go after I finish this program, I was overwhelmed by the feeling of this is not what I want for my life. Now, for those who don’t know me well, I am extremely Type A. My best friend jokes that I’ve always had a 5-year plan. And it’s typed up. And laminated. It’s an exaggeration of course, but it’s not far off the mark – I generally do have a plan about where I’m going and what I want. And I have a plan for how to achieve this. So to be hit with the feeling of this isn’t what I want in my life was quite terrifying.

I reached out to friends I trust and who have had their own Aha! moments – moments where they realized their path may be changing. Friends whose advice and guidance I wholly trust. After talking me off the ledge, one friend said, “Welcome to your mid-life crisis.”

“Is that what this shit is?” I responded.

I don’t think she’s wrong, but my mid-life crisis isn’t going to make me run out and buy a convertible or some other item to “reclaim” my youth. This isn’t about getting older, I’m fine with that. It’s more about the idea of what do I want for the rest of my life. What brings me fulfillment and joy?

The average person spends 90,000 hour at work, about 1/3 of their lives. This is no small amount and so figuring out what I want to do in the future is not an insignificant task.

I spent a lot of time thinking about it over the weekend. It helped that I picked up this book from the library:

What I really loved about this book was she says a person doesn’t have to quit their day job to fully embrace their creative life. This was something that has been plaguing me – how do I balance my very government-corporate day job with my poetry life, the part of my life that fulfills me in ways my day job never will. While I don’t have all the answers for what my future holds, I am feeling calmer and a little more balanced in how I can move forward.

In addition to doing a lot of reading and studying over the next ten months, I also plan on spending a lot of time thinking about my goals for the future, figuring out how to move forward with my desires, and how to balance everything.