After graduating, it felt a bit like I fell into a black hole.

Throughout high school and university, I always knew what was next. Then finally, after years of anticipation I graduated. The prospect of graduating, getting a job, having some form of (hopefully) decent pay and finally being able to afford rent, food and go to festivals instead of working there sounded good.

“It will be fun” they said.

“You can do anything” they said.

“The world is at your feet they said” they said.

In some ways it is. Infinite possibilities. How comforting yet absolutely useless.

In reality: I probably should have saved up a bit more so I actually had some time to chill after graduating, without having to stress about money or what’s next straight away.

After 8 long years of studying, I didn’t expect to miss the structure, freedom and clear sense of direction I had, or the stable source of income (aka my student loan) that I didn’t have to work for and the unlimited holidays.

Once you’re done, there’s no going back, and suddenly it feels like I need to make all these big decisions. There’s some unexplainable feeling of pressure that I need to make a “right” decision and that every minute counts. Like it’s some kind of competition that isn’t really there.

Here I am, with a bachelors degree, two masters, no money, no job and no idea what’s next. It feels like I’m in a vast emptiness of space, surrounded by absolutely nothing. I don’t which way is up or down, I can’t see the floor but am somehow still standing. I’m hoping, waiting for a neon sign to appear to give me some sense of direction.

Clueless which way to go, I just walk. No idea what the destination is, but I guess we’ll see. In Dutch I’d say: “iedereen doet maar wat”.