Easy-Peasy, Life Was Breezy

Once upon a time, life was easy. Or at least this is what I think now because at the moment, life is hard.

I moved to New York City at 23 with a dollar and a dream. OK, I had more than $1 but not by much. What I did have was drive and ambition. I had hunger. And I had optimism. The early years of relentlessly harassing people (in a nice way) so I could get my foot in the fashion industry door, the late nights at the office proving myself and climbing up the ladder, the years of having 2 and 3 jobs. They all seem so distant now, so easy because I don't think about them and I forgot how hard it was at the beginning.

What I remember is how much simpler it was from the middle on. At some point you make enough money at your real job to not have to work another one. Projects come easier than they used to, you get jobs via referrals and word of mouth. Most of the time you don't even need to interview anymore. At least I didn't. I guess I should have enjoyed it more while I had it so good.

A while back on a regular day, while doing a regular mundane thing, I realized I had been in San Diego for 5 months and hadn't accomplished most of the things I had thought I would. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Did it put a fire under my ass to get things moving? Yes. Did it also cause 1 mini-meltdown per week since then? That would be yes. I have been trying to conquer the voice in my head that all too often says: "I didn't do enough, I didn't research grad schools enough, I haven't gotten anywhere. I don't have a job, I need a job. What if this whole thing doesn't work out??"

Multiply that intensity x10 to get a feel for how frantic I really get.

Moving across the country this time around is so different. I had lofty thoughts and noble ideas about a new career and how to get there. I see myself there. I imagine my life 5 years from now and professionally I am where I want to be. But actually getting there is proving to be more difficult than I expected. At the moment, my efforts are not yielding any tangible results and getting there seems so far away.

Back To School: If I Can Ever Figure This Out, That Is

I swear, colleges make their process so damn complicated, I'm starting to wonder how anyone in this country even has a degree. I don't know if it's like this in other parts of the world, too, but I can speak for my own undergrad and say it wasn't, so right now I am beyond frustrated.

I'm sure it doesn't help that I don't know exactly what I want to study. Is there some way to merge Public Administration (w a focus in Women's Studies) w Public Policy w Social Work w International Business w International Development w Languages?

What, that doesn't exist?

Oh, and to make matters worse, here's an obstacle made just for me; I don't think any (good) university in the US will accept my Bachelor's degree bc I obtained it from a fashion-specific college, where they use a French/Syrian grading system. Therefore, GPAs and transcripts do not exist, and so, in order to get this Master's degree I would so like to have, I am terrified I might need to go get me a new BA!

Sigh.

The complicatedness of the system alone was enough to deter me from going back to school years ago, back when I had had enough of fashion the last time (yes, it's happened more than once over the span of my career). But now that I'm seriously considering it, now that I've taken in the idea so much that it's practically a given in my own head, now that it's been marinating in my brain for months -- well, now it's not enough to deter me, but with the added unforeseen challenges, it is enough to make me crazy.

Yesterday I researched schools for 5 minutes. Five minutes! And my brain was fried. That happens every single time I try to get somewhere with this goal. Time and again I realize why it is so much easier to stay in a miserable job than to do something new with your life. But I refuse to let that be me.

One of these days I'm gonna figure this whole thing out and laugh about how frustrated I was. Actually, what I think is gonna happen is, by some miracle-slash-sheer perseverance on my part, despite all these obstacles, I'm gonna make sure I do get accepted into a Master's program, and then I'll be super frustrated with things like exams and paper deadlines and theses and so on, that I'll wonder why I was dying to go back to school in the first place. Then I'm gonna refer back to this post and either laugh at my intuitiveness, or bawl.

Only one way to find out, I guess. I'm off to do some more research!