The Prison of Choice

I'm locked in a post-grad stale-mate, a year early

It’s achingly grey outside, the clouds threatening to break under the weight of the rain they’re carrying. In a desperate attempt to spill some colour into my day, I've crawled back under my floral bedding, not dissimilar to that which I slept under as a child.

Romeo and Juliet is playing on the TV, and I think of the first time I watched it, on a classroom on plastic blue chairs in my last year of primary school.

Now, I teeter on the edge of my last year of university, and sometimes, I wonder what I’ve learnt in all these years.

I’m 22, and I’m still sleeping under flowers.

As I approach the last year of my degree, I can’t help but feel like a sapling; Plath’s fig tree is stretching out before me with all of the versions of my life that already exist, and I’m teetering on the branch hoping I pick the right one.

It fills every conversation, a blank space and an overwhelming weight, the one question that makes my cheeks flush.

“Have you thought about what’s next?”

Endlessly, actually.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had my future planned out. I knew what school I wanted to go to, what I wanted to study, even the grades I planned to get, striving to achieve the best and open up the world that little bit more. Now, I’m running out of the track I was running on, and I’m free to take any direction I choose.

It’s incredible, really, that such vastness can be so suffocating. The prison of choice.

It’s incredibly unsettling for me to not have a concrete plan; I like a plan. My mind flips constantly between the options, the possibilities that could shape my future.

Do I want to study more?

How about a grad scheme?

I’ve always wanted to travel a bit more.

What about the book I’ve been wanting to write?

I feel like a pendulum, constantly swinging between what is right and what is me; the sensible choice would probably be to apply to grad schemes, work my way up the ladder, commuting to work with bleary eyes and a to-go cup of coffee. My parents would be happy with that, I know that much.

The last time I was at a family gathering, I was cornered by a relative. He was talking to me about the stability in the job he was suggesting for me, the ‘perks’ being a good wage and travel opportunities. He says he feels ‘at home’ there, at a desk in a London office, and while he talked at me my gaze wandered to my little sister running in the garden, free as a bird, worrying only about whether or not she’ll be allowed chocolate ice cream after dinner.

Despite the outward appearance, dressed in neutral colours and gripping a gin and tonic, I still feel 10 too sometimes, still sleeping under the flowers that adorned my childhood.

I think it’s for this reason that I started to write here. I know that I’m not someone who can give up on her passions in place of stability, even though I sometimes wish I were. Maybe things would be easier for me if I was passionate about something more lucrative, like economics or maths.

But then, I suppose, I wouldn’t be me.

The girl who loves language and the way we can contort it like magic to mean something, to make us feel. The way it connects us, whether it’s by speaking to someone new in their native language or getting 1 message that changes the direction of your day entirely.

Spending the summer at home has made me incredibly introspective, sometimes detrimentally, and I started this piece wondering how much I’ve truly changed since I was a little girl, but I can say as I reflect through writing this that my type A Alex Dunphy alter ego has definitely changed her priorities.

As I move back to my university city for (maybe?) the final time, I will, as previously, be striving for the best grades possible, but no longer at the detriment of myself and my core. It means everything to me to be an educated woman; I hold my privilege and opportunity close to my chest, and I’m grateful for the opportunities that fan out in front of me like a deck of cards, choosing my fate.

No matter which of the cards I choose, which path I do end up going down, I know that the one thing keeping me tied to the ground, anchoring me from floating too far away from myself, will be my love of writing and reading.

Whether I’m lucky enough to call it a job one day, or whether it’s the hobby I use to distract from my day job, the space that my passions hold in my heart is greater than ever, greater than a few years ago when passion had no place in my future.

So, as I write this tucked under my floral duvet, the ways in which I have evolved are abundantly clear.

I’m writing.

After years of wanting to, but pushing it aside, fearing my own inadequacy and the worry that no one wants to hear my voice, I’m writing it anyway, even if it is into the void. Because now, I’m doing things for me, following the dreams I’ve been spinning since I was a little girl in my bedroom.

The certainty I used to feel was hinged upon my plans, my direction, my motivation. Now, I have no plan, and certainly no direction, but for the first time in a while, my certainty lies in who I am.

And I’m loving getting to know her x