A Gaping Hole.

Recently, I have been referring to the upcoming months as "The gaping hole that is my future."

I do not like being uncertain of my future. From kindergarten to my senior year of high school, my plans were decided. In middle school, I said that I would be a math teacher, and I am now seven weeks away from receiving my bachelor's in mathematics education. My senior year of high school, I decided very early that I was attending FSU. I applied, was accepted, and never once considered attending, or even applying to, another college. Any time there was uncertainty in my future, I immediately filled it: I've worked at the same summer job for four years, attended college regularly, and made decisions early enough to plan accordingly.

Now, however, I'm about to graduate, and I'm not sure what will happen. I don't know if I can find a job. I don't know if I'll have to attend grad school. I don't know if Leon County will hire me, or what I can do if no teachers are being hired here, and I can't even plan ahead at this time. My future is a gaping hole of uncertainty, and I do not know what's going to happen or what I'm going to do. And that thought terrifies me.

I wonder, sometimes, where the time has gone. Time is a constantly perplexing thing; we are constantly changing, growing, moving, proceeding, spinning day by day, month by month, year by year. But the speed never makes sense to me. I feel like this semester is the longest of my life; I wait anxiously for graduation, but it feels like the end is no closer to arriving than it was a year ago. Every day passes so slowly that the weekend takes a small eternity to arrive. And at the same time, I wonder what happened to my teenage years. Where did the past four years go? I remember high school, and college, and I'm certain they happened, but I'm not sure how it flew by so quickly; just the other day I was moving into a dormitory, away from home for the first time, and here I am, about to graduate. I feel like every day is dragging by, holding me back from the future, while the months are flying by me before I have a chance to realize that they have passed me by, forever.

And suddenly, here I am, 22 years old, caught up in the ever-spinning wheel of time, moving through life at some indiscernible speed. I am aware, for today, of the paradoxical speed that my life is taking, but who knows about tomorrow, or the day after, or any other day. All I know is that, in a few years, this gaping hole of uncertainty will be a blur in my memory; this will be just a small transitional phase from one stage of my life to something bigger and better.