I always dreamed about the summer after graduation. This intense feeling of freedom is rare, and incomparable to any vacations that came before and will come after. Here and now, at last, I stand without any true responsibilities. I can meet my friends, I can go out, I can sleep in. This is my redemption after practically having no social life, not just because of studying, but because of COVID as well. My time is mine, and I can do with it as I please. However, I also am quite quickly realising that there is a caveat to this soaring freedom that doesn’t seem to bother anyone else (yet) apart from me in moments of anxiety, the caveat being: a) I do not know myself at all, and b) my entire future is uncertain. These both sound quite dramatic, and maybe I am too dramatic, overthinking and milling over these introspective thoughts too much, but hey ho! 

Regarding the first point, I don’t mean to say I have no idea who I am, that I’m living in a stranger’s body or any of that crap. I mean, on a simple, plain level. What do I truly enjoy doing? What are my preferences on how to spend my day? Do I like to wile my time away, or is this some subconscious revenge for the lack of lazing around during the IB days? Do I like to anything other than draw, play the piano for 20 minutes and then give up because it is quite frustrating and tiring, running and sleeping? How do I “level up”? It feels like there’s this magic checklist that I need to complete before I feel truly satisfied to go off to college and begin a new chapter. Yes, half of it is related to the activities and things I’d like to do with my friends, but what about myself? What brings me joy? It feels like I hit a wall when I try to find out new things about me. And maybe that is the sad reality. That I’m a bit of a boring girl who has nothing much to do and nothing much to say about anything. 

Regarding my second point, I am not sure how everyone seems so excited about college when it is in fact excruciatingly terrifying. Not only are you going to be thrown into an unfamiliar social, academic, and mental space, but you will be forced to enculturate into an alien culture, feeling extraterrestrial, out of body, and feeling. I go about my day as a harmless pleasantly bored individual, until at night, where I lay staring at my ceiling, and I am forced to confront my impending reality that violently clashes with the lazy manner of time I am comfortably suspended in. In a month, I could be starting at a new university right here in Singapore – this depends on whether or not I managed to scrape an extremely high IB score (my hopes are low) – or I could be in Singapore for a few months longer, waiting to hear back from Australia, unsure of my future for a little while longer. It is this uncertainty that may be the added extra layer of “daunting” that perhaps my friends are spared of. Most of them know where they are going, which is also intimidating, but the human brain has a beautiful way of coming to terms with a reality quite well if it is given ample time to do so. My friends who know the college they’re in, the classes they’re enrolled for, are given the space to build a connection with the place, their potential friends; to build up a fantasy that keeps the fear of the unknown at bay (mostly). I, however, truly do not know where I am going, or what the next few years of my life are going to look like. I find it impossible to relax with this sword of uncertainty, and pressure of doing well in the IB, hanging over my head. But, perhaps then, I must seize this time as a learning opportunity. There is no other time like this. Not knowing where I start university may be a blessing in disguise, allowing me to continue my life as normal without the aching anxiety of leaving home, the days counting down slowly, and then a little faster and faster. So yes, I am terrified. But I can’t really control this situation, can I? I can control my attitude, my mindset. I’ve got to consciously flip this anxiety off, shove it down, and instead focus on what it is I can control. Knowing all of this can end in a month should make me cherish it that much more. But I guess I have the added benefit that it in fact may not be the end of anything just yet. So, to flip the perspective then, maybe I’m the lucky one, because, it’s really the best of both worlds, isn’t it?