Rachel del Valle | Pick a job, any job

Midwifery, urban education, historic preservation, psychiatry. Last Friday over lunch, my friend and I tossed career options across the table like a hockey puck.

Over Easter brunch, I did the same thing with my parents, chalking my blueness up to stress about my future. They reassured me that they’d support my decision(s) regardless, and I nodded, almost wishing they had set some limitations.

The whole time I heard myself whining about what the next few years of my life would look like, I felt annoyed. “Just pick already. Don’t be so indecisive. Quit the navel-gazing,” I thought.

Lately, I find myself unloading my post-graduation anxiety on anyone who will listen.

It’s weird — thrilling in its own way. The string of possible career paths I rattle off makes me seem cool and bohemian when actually I’m just scared.

The worst part of this newfound fickleness is that I know exactly how other people are judging me for it because up until recently, I was on the other side of that dynamic.

So, let me clarify. I’m not aimless or bratty or unmotivated. I’m just overwhelmed. And I’m trying to not care what other people think, but if this written exercise in self-justification is any indication, that’s harder than it sounds.

For a while, I was fairly certain of what I wanted to do with my life. But at some point I realized the only reason I felt sure of my choice was because I’d never seriously considered other possibilities. Tunnel vision is not dedication.

And then the floodgates opened. Then the amateur online research. And finally, the anxiety.

At first it was fun — I pictured myself in New Orleans working at a nonprofit, or in graduate school studying English, or in Seville, finally mastering my Spanish. But the novelty wore off, and reality hit like a cartoon anvil.

After a while, flipping through the possibilities in your head begins to feel like playing with paper dolls. You slide off one look and fold the edges of another over your flat, flimsy self: a teacher in a pencil skirt and glasses, a museum curator in a shift dress or a writer in pajamas.

Even if you want to cover all your bases, leave no stone unturned and climb every mountain, you eventually end up feeling like a career dilettante. There’s an unavoidable, nettling sense of superficiality that comes with mentally aligning yourself with a certain life — or in my case, lives.

When is it no longer acceptable to have a revolving door of imaginary job suitors? When do I have to settle down and say: Yes, I’ll pursue that.

The cliched answer is “never!” The real answer is “sometime soon, I guess?” As it crawls towards the end of the semester, more people say, “What are you doing this summer?” than “How are you?”

Every time this happens, I feel like I’m being jabbed in the ribcage. My automated reply is something to the effect of, “Oh, you know, I’ve applied for some things, waiting to hear back, still have some deadlines coming up ….” In a word, it’s fuzzy.

In some ways, the ambiguity is exciting. But mostly it’s just stressful.

I can picture a summer afternoon a few years ago: I’m sitting across from a high school friend, eating a cheeseburger, having a good talk.

“I don’t think I ever want to work for anybody,” she said calmly. I remember thinking she’d reached a level of liberal artsiness I’d never match. She said it in the same understated way she says everything, without expecting any particular response.

Her clarity struck me, and now I think I understand why.

She’d made a decision, albeit a risky one, to embrace the life of an artist. That was more than I had done, and now, it’s still more than I’ve done.

I envy those who know what they want.

It seems easy to oversimplify and say that everyone who’s not in the College, or is pre-med, pre-law or pre-whatever has their next few years planned out.

For some, things might be more clearly sketched out, but that doesn’t mean that graduating with a degree in electrical engineering comes with a map. At best, we’re handed a job to try on for size.

Rachel del Valle is a College junior from Newark, N.J. Her email address is rdel@sas.upenn.edu. Follow her @rachelsdelvalle. “Duly Noted” appears every Tuesday.

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