Prompt:

Have you been bracing yourself for a new beginning? Perhaps one that is daunting yet inevitable, or maybe one that you've been hoping for and dreaming about. What will it take for you to get there? Who will be with you? What will it feel like when you get to the other side?

If you’d like, use the refrain, “I will begin again as…”

Welcome to my quarter-life crisis

It’s funny to receive this prompt in the same weekend I started creating this website. The majority of my projects at my job involve communication management so I wanted to be able to display my accomplishments when my program ends in the summer. I graduated in May 2018 and I feel like since then I’ve been constantly bracing myself for a new beginning. Hello twenties?

When I was in undergrad, I was always stuck in the “never enough” mentality. I graduated thinking that I had never produced anything good so I did a pretty terrible job saving a lot of work. I did manage to find some old writings and I feel so much prouder of my past work than I ever have. College has this toxic culture of needing to constantly produce and always being on a strict timeline with professional goals otherwise you’re a failure. I felt terrible for not knowing what career I wanted and for not taking the GRE or LSAT by graduation. But I chose to begin again and this led me to Philly, where I discovered I have a talent for digital communication and community engagement.

The pandemic makes me apprehensive about the future, especially since I will be job and apartment hunting soon. However, this is the least nervous I’ve ever been about not hitting important professional milestones by certain deadlines.

I will begin again soon. I have not been wasting my time exploring my passions and realizing what I dislike. I am allowed to change my mind and reprioritize things in my life. Nearly three years after graduating, I am finally taking the LSAT. And in the future I intend to find ways to be successful as a law student and later an attorney, my main intention in life is to be gentle with myself during these new beginnings.

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