Future

Numerous web searches on a number of sites have lead me to this place. A place I'd like to call: Panic.

It started with a harmless search for a job for a friend on the State of Colorado website. Then, a visit to the State of New Mexico's website confirmed the same news: hiring freeze.

Until now, all the talks about "recession" and "poor economy" and "deficit" were just terms - unrelated to me and those around me. I have a job. My best friends have jobs. They aren't struggling in the "down" economy. But it all became real when I looked at my life just six months from now.

In six months, I will be gearing up to graduate - taking comprehensive exams and finishing up a research project based on the experiences of my summer fellowship - and I will probably have that nagging sensation that somehow, someway, I should have a plan. It's already beginning to come to fruition in my planner brain (that which I cannot help). I've always had a plan. Even when I graduated the first time, I had a plan to enter a bright and shiny career in journalism. Initially, the career didn't come, but I only had to wait two months for two stellar job offers to come my way - unheard of for someone as green and "just out of school" as me. I didn't freak out because I had a waitressing job to fall back on should I ever need it, and it never occurred to me that this would ever be "unacceptable."

Now, I look forward a bit to that six month mark and I wonder what I'm going to do with a "bad" economy like this. Now, the recession is hitting closer and closer to home. Friends who are overly qualified for a number of jobs are applying to be assistant managers at Wal-Mart and others are struggling to find even temp work. Still others are taking teaching positions that pay peanuts in order to make ends meet.

All this stirs up the rumblings of a panic attack.

My mom is constantly telling me things will be fine - which is obviously what moms do - and she claims things will all fall into place for me in the end, like they always have. But I have come to question this logic. In some ways, I've been lucky to achieve what I have achieved. In other ways, I have a long way to go before truly becoming "successful." It starts (and ends) with the degree I've worked for the past three years (off and on) and setting myself up to maneuver into the next step.

With the next six months of my life planned (almost) to the day, what lies beyond is almost too much to comprehend. "Luck" and "circumstance" aside, there isn't much I know. Except uncertainty. And that's just what I fear the most.