With the new semester starting just last week, I wanted to start looking at things differently. I'm sure everyone stops and thinks about this at some point, but as I get older every year, I start to take things more lightly and drop the ignorance a little at a time.

For as long as I can remember, I've always looked forward to the future and created goals to work towards. As good as it is to be prepared for future adult-like living, I always ignored living in the present. I was always excited to answer those "so what do you want to be when you grow up" questions from family members you haven't seen in a long time. I always plan and research everything extensively - sometimes I loose interest since those tiny mysterious factors that drew me in in the first place have disappeared.
Have you ever had friends that always needed to be in a relationship? As soon as they jumped out of one, they jumped into another one almost immediately after. I was always like that with career goals. As soon as I moved away from one, I always wandered towards another one. It always gave me that sense of security that I will be okay financially in the future. I was all about that up until a few weeks ago...

It was my trip to Seattle that changed things. the point of my trip was to check out a school I was interested in after finishing school here in New York. In my second semester in illustration, the idea of pursuing a career in art therapy sounded perfect. I researched and researched, looked into local grad schools, not so local grad schools, requirements to apply for those grad schools, etc. I was SO into the idea. Two days before my scheduled meeting for the school, I started questioning things. I have that personality where if I talk myself out of something, it's nearly impossible for me to talk myself back into it. I had officially talked myself out of this possible career direction. I felt so empty.

It was a Ben & Jerry's in Portland where this decision was made. I talked it over with my mom while we ate our ice cream. I thought what if I go with the flow and just see where life leads me. I have two more years to finish up my degree. A lot can happen in two years. Maybe I should just let it happen and take advantage of everything I'm being taught. That's always been one of my problems. Working towards that art therapy life, I wondered why I needed to take a stupid InDesign class. Being in that mindset made me so ignorant; I didn't take advantage of what I was being taught since my head was somewhere else.

I don't like this clueless feeling that I have drifted towards, but it really has been keeping my head empty of long term goals to work towards, which relieves so much stress. I literally feel empty, but in like a dreamy sense. It feels kinda good.

I guess I just needed to express that thought in words and call it a day. You can say my goal right now is to just go with the flow that my life is just flowing towards and live in the present more. There are a few things I'm currently a part of that is giving me a little reassurance, but for the most part I'm feeling free and happy. I'm working on goals but they're all on my term.