It’s 3:49am and I’m still awake. I’ve always had trouble turning my brain off at will, but tonight, it’s especially hard. My mind is whirring and turning and trying to figure out what my answer is to the question of “What’s next?”

Senior year of college was rough. Ask anyone that I interacted with at all that year, and I’m sure they can tell you. To put it succinctly, I was a basket case. I had never, and haven’t since, cried so much in my entire life. I’d cry and not know why, I’d cry and know why but not let myself realize the reason. Masking things is always easier, right? The last three weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. There were a couple days when all I could do was cry or be irrationally angry at everyone I care about. For those terrifying days, I wondered if I was going to end up like I was senior year again- trying to make myself numb because everything I felt was too real. And living for other people instead of myself.

Thankfully, I’ve grown enough since I graduated college (and finished all those therapy sessions) to have a better grasp on what I needed to do to ensure that I didn’t allow myself to fall down the rabbit hole. And without knowing it, I did the best thing for me and went to my apartment two states from ‘home’ and spent some time with just myself. I distracted myself with a movie that actually made me laugh enough to not be all “gloom and doomy” and I spent time thinking and sometimes crying, but at least being real with myself. No more hiding behind myself or others- it was time to figure out what I truly wanted.

And I thought I had that figured out.

But life likes to throw me curveballs whenever I feel that way to show me that I really need to just learn to go with the flow already. If life is a highway, then there’s an exit sign ahead- the first for many, many miles, and I have to decide if I want to take it or not. Never before have I been so utterly terrified and excited at the same time. Also: confused.

Life likes to play with my emotions. All of them.

I think I have an answer- one that 24 hours ago was not the one I was going to choose. But if this is my life and I want to live it, how can I not justify taking that leap of faith?

“…I guess if you don’t jump, you’ll never know if you can fly.”