I wonder a lot if I'm "settling." You know, taking the the safe path, the guaranteed salary, all that jazz. You know, the opposite of "follow your dreams!" Settling.
I'm settling, I think. I could have gone straight from college into a graduate writing program. Instead, I'm taking a year off, working, living in the city, writing when I'm not too tired. I like it. All the same, it's getting close to the time when I need to start applying to grad programs if I want to get into one next year. And the question nagging me is--do I? I love writing. I don't ever want to quit writing. It's one of my outlets, one of the few things I'm marginally good at. (I SAID MARGINALLY.)
With that said, do I really, really, really want to go back to school to put another layer of polish on? Rack up another 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars in debt? As it stands, I'll be paying down college debt until 2025. Do I want more? Do I need more? I could be working all that time...
If I work, though, will I eventually stop writing? It's hard to find the time now. If I had a social life, it would be even harder. But I don't want to be a starving writer in a garret. That's passe, for one thing. For another, I don't do well without at least one solid meal a day. The rational part of me puts the kibosh on grad school. The rational part of me would win, I think, if I weren't also a hopeless romantic in some respects. As it stands, I'm at a stalemate, putting off the decision as long as I can. But I'm running out of time.
Maybe that alone is a sign. If I have to fight myself about whether I'm settling, maybe it isn't settling. Maybe it's what I want. Maybe it's what I want...
