The Question.

Graduation is rapidly approaching, and you know what that means... the question is here. It started as a trickle at the beginning of the semester, only appearing here and there, every once in awhile. Now, it's a full fledged torrent. Every time I turn around, it's there. What am I going to do when I graduate? What are my plans? What will I do with my life? What, when, how?!

It wouldn't be such a burden if I had an answer. But, I don't. I need to come up with a party line by graduation day, so that all of the inquiring relatives can get the same easy answer. Thus far I all I've been able to come up with is, "Ummm...," "Err...," and "My plan? Ha! What's that?" For the record, those answers don't satisfy anyone.

The truth is, I have no idea what I'm going to do. It's not that I don't know what I want. It's just that I'm not willing to take a permanent job right now, because I don't want to stay in one place. I'll be in Charlotte for the summer - my brother's last summer before he goes to college. I want to spend some extended time with my grandparents in Charleston before I move far away from the Carolinas. And then, in the fall, I might need to move to Wilmington for a my boyfriend's last semester - because I'm not very good with long distance. After that, we want to go back to Peru for a couple of months. Then, I doubt we'll stay in the South. The future holds lots of travel, grad school, and low-paying community service jobs. That's the long term answer.

The short term, though, sounds less exciting: I'll be living with my mother, working random jobs, nannying, and saving money. I'll be traveling and spending time with the important people in my life. Then maybe, in half a year or so, "real life" will kick in. But, not yet. Not yet.