Epiphanies come at the oddest of times, I've found. It's always when you least expect it, when you're doing something boring and humdrum, or worse, when you're raging through your work because you're inching too close to a Deadline of Doom. My current epiphany falls a bit into the latter category, but if I don't write this down now, I think my head just might bust.
I'm 21 years old, soon to complete 22, and in my final year of college. I'm an architecture student, and in the common habit of architecture students, I have general habits of being hotheaded, more than a bit mad and perhaps, more idealistic than I ought to be. I'm currently juggling three projects, one of which is due day after tomorrow. And just while I was placing finishing touches to a sketch, it suddenly hit me that while I love doing this (which I do, honestly, I do enjoy it), there is something that is starting to turn this into a chore. I'm not enjoying this as much as I should. I'm not loving this as much as I used to.
Maybe it's because of all the professors and pressure and all the whatnot, or maybe it's just me being naive and ridiculous, but why am I not able to love designing buildings as much as I did last year? What changed in those 365 1/4 days?
I mulled over it while taking a break to feed the stray cat visiting my doorstep. And while I did, two words leaped out at me from the swirly abyss of knick-knacks that is my mind, and it spoke with a booming voice that made me think of the monsters that would show up in the old kiddy TV shows I used to watch.
"FINAL YEAR," it roared at me.
I listened more carefully and the words seemed to warp into something else.
"WHAT COMES AFTER?"
Bang. There it is. Hello.
Over the last few years, I had taken to writing down the stories that my funny little brain would come up with and one of those stories in particular took root like a seed and grew and grew until it seemed to block out the sun. Now, there is probably nothing in the world that I love more than that story of mine. I love that world. I love those characters. I love living their story and learning about them and finding out what they're going to do. And I find myself waiting to just get this one last year in college over with so that I can get underway with Project Publish.
But what about architecture?
Well, I need architecture. I enjoy it and I'm not about to let five long, hard years of work go to nothing. I can't survive on being a writer alone. I'll do both then. I'll have my love of buildings and my passion for stories. I won't lose them both; they both mean too much.
But then it got me thinking of what everyone else has been talking about. "I'll go, study my masters, get a job, get married." "I've got a family business, I'll get married." "I'll find a job, work for two years, do my masters, start my own firm, get married." And whenever anyone asks me, I just say, "Oh, I'll get a job and work a couple of years." "What next?" they ask. "Let me graduate first!" I tell them.
And it strikes me then: we are all so engrained into this system that we call life. I don't know if what I'm seeing is some twisted version of reality that my imagination is cooking up for me, if I'm just being a young person who thinks that they know everything, or if I'm seeing a shard of truth. But isn't that what it reduces to? Go to school, go to college, get a degree, get a job, earn money, get married, have children, raise them properly, retire. And when I think about what's coming after this year, I'm terrified out of my stripey socks.
Because I don't think it's all so black and white. I think there's so much more. I think it's possible for there to be so much more, even if they are to be found within the trappings of this system that we are invariably dragged into.
Because I want it to be so. I want to learn about everything that I can learn about. I don't want to just go and study a master's degree because it is expected of me. I want to see parts of the world I've only ever looked at in the pages of a book or in computer screens. I don't want to be stuck in a four-walled apartment or a picket fence house for years together. I want to work and earn money doing something that I love, so that it doesn't feel like a daily grind. I don't want a 9 to 5 job where I stare at a laptop screen and further ruin my already myopic eyes, doing something because someone is breathing down my neck and forcing me to. I want to fall completely and utterly in love with someone who'll play Scrabble on cold days, dance with me in the rain, discuss philosophy and Shakespeare and watch old movies and reruns of Doctor Who over hot chocolate and chips. I don't want to get married to someone just to find out that he doesn't understand a word of what I say.
I want to know who I am and what defines me. I want to live and love to the fullest. I want to write every word that comes to me and share them with the world so that they can feel the magic that those words weave over me. I want to be extraordinary.
But how can I do that? I'll probably figure it out as I go along. I'm still young, but I feel something changing with every day that passes. I'm starting to seriously consider things that I used to dismiss into my 'Dreams Only' folder. Things will happen, I intend to make it so. And when reality comes around, I'll meet it, ready for its challenge.
For now, I've got a project to ramp up on. Ta!
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