I've been thinking a lot lately. More than usual, I think. I recently read Amy's post about figuring out life at 25, letting go of the rat race, and embracing the moment. Her thoughts echoed so many of my own at this time in my life. I feel like up until graduating college I had a distinct goal in mind (finishing each year of school, graduating high school and getting good grades to go to college, graduating college...), and even the Winne trip was a goal I worked towards, but now I don't know where to go or what to do. Everything seems so nebulous. I feel like my options are both endless and extremely limited... at the same time. Which is frustrating and confusing. Dan has two years left of undergrad left to complete and we're struggling with figuring out a way to do it without being loaded with debt by the end. Both of us are extremely anti-debt, and even though school is a worthy cause for getting into debt, it's still painful to think about graduating with so much debt before even going into a masters program. I think for a lot of people the concept of having debt is normal, especially when it comes to school, but for both me and Dan it makes our stomachs turn.

So there's that. And then we have this feeling of wanting to enjoy this time in our lives. To get out and travel and go on adventures before grad school or kids tie us down. And then there's the completely opposite idea of putting some roots down in Tacoma, if Dan is going to end up going to school here, and maybe trying to buy a house, instead of throwing away money on rent every month. Or somehow figuring out how to live in the Brave. For now, though we're here in our house until the end of summer, so we don't have to figure anything out for at least a couple months.

And in my own life, I'm really struggling with my job. I knew going into it that it was a bit of a gamble as I'd never done anything like it before, but I had hoped that I'd settle in and it would feel right. Unfortunately, this has not happened. I hate being a "quitter" though, and will sometimes end up sticking with something longer than I should just because I don't want to feel as though I've "failed". I frankly don't know what to do, and my tendency when I don't know what to do is to not do anything. So I'm doing nothing. I'm thankful to have a job at all, though, and that Dan has been able to find work as well.

This paragraph from Amy's post pretty much sums up a lot of things I've felt recently:

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how I got where I ended up. I'm 25, which gives me this weird feeling of reflection and an intense need to say...wtf? What is my life right now? I feel like I've let young, scrappy Amy so full of ambition and hope down. Do most 20-somethings feel this way? I spent the last decade worrying about my future. Middle school was all about getting ahead in high school, high school was all about working hard to get ahead in college and get scholarships, college was all about studying and writing my guts out to get a good job, and now here I am. 4 years on the workforce with not a whole lot to show for it.

Oh, Amy, I don't know if most 20-somethings feel that way, but I sure do.