Unsure, but Self-Assured

The conversation begins innocently enough. I’m asked to pass the salad tongs by a distant relative at a family party before the relative remarks on how fast I’m growing up. Then she asks the unavoidable question.

“Where do you want to go to college?”

College used to be this faraway concept but has now replaced “How are you?” as my most frequently asked question by close family members, acquaintances and casual strangers alike. An icebreaker, if you will.

As a senior, with three months until my eighteenth birthday and nine before I graduate, I feel like I’m expected to know what to do next. But I don’t.

In response to my relative’s inquiring of my plans, I shrug respectfully and try to change the topic to one that doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my skin. While I understand that these questions are not ill-intentioned and the questioner is merely curious, I can’t help but feel uneasy. Are we supposed to have it all figured out at seventeen and three quarters years old? How am I supposed to have a plan for the next four years of my life when I don’t even know what I’m going to eat for dinner tonight?

If at this age, we’re expected to have a clear cut map of the next four years (or eight or ten, depending on ambition) and the next forty after that, not only am I not up to speed, I haven’t started the engine yet.

That doesn’t mean I’m completely clueless. I have some idea of the passions and interests I may consider pursuing professionally. I know my weaknesses. I won’t ever discover a  trig theorem, but I’m okay with that. I have weaknesses but I also have my strengths. I’m determined and hardworking. And these realizations have led to a more meaningful revelation.

Yes, I have no idea where I’ll be next year, but I do know me and though I’m not sure, I’m self-assured. It’s not where you’re going that matters but what you do there. It’s okay that I don’t know the destination because plans change. There is no definite course and as the popular saying goes, half the fun is getting there anyway.

Yvonne Lee,

Editor in Chief