#nkut

I’ve been thinking more and more about a gap year or taking time off in college. With everything that happened last year at UC, with sssas, and with the overwhelming pressure that’s always been put on me for excellence in everything, it’s gotten to the point where I know that I need to figure out what I want, and what I need, for the rest of my life.

Since I was a kid all of my choices of what I want and enjoy have been made for me, from where and what I’m studying, what sports I’m allowed to try and play, what jobs I should have, and how I should act. I feel like at this point, college isn’t really helping me reach my long term goals, and especially isn’t helping me in figuring out what those goals are.

I know that my dad would never go for it, and my mother would balk. I wouldn’t want to leave Sabrina because obvious reasons, and even if we weren’t dating and i weren’t madly in love with her, I wouldn’t want to leave her without a roommate. But the thing is, I know I’m petering out and hitting a huge wall where school and my wants in life are involved.

The spring break trip really helped me realizing with that. This semester I’ve gone to maybe 30% of my classes, honestly probably less. I’ve never dropped below a 3.6 before in my life, but I honestly think I may fail the semester at this point. The thing is though, I can’t bring myself to do the work or to care. I would sit at home or go for hikes and not care to participate in class. The only time I would really try and go to something scheduled was with work, since I knew I had to work for the money. Other than that, I’ve spent my time exploring the mountains or researching things on the internet and in general feeling incredibly stagnant. On the spring break trip though, everything lightened, without the pressures of school I was able to start really figuring out what interests me, what areas I like to be in, how I like to spend my time. I was excited to wake up and move every morning, excited to explore and be alive.

The thing is, it’s not just that oh I’m tired with school or that it’ll come back, or that it’s a depression thing (I don’t think), since I was perfectly happy being alive and myself on the trip, or when I’m in the mountains. The issue is I don’t know where I’m going with school, and this god awful job, and I frankly feel like I’m missing a crucial piece to the puzzle that is my life, and what I want.

Maybe a gap year will fix that. Spend a year working, doing hard, hands-dirty work that I can experience a lot of things with.

I’ve been putting more and more research into it. I could do americorp disaster response teams, who work with wildfires and flood victims, and when they’re not doing disaster relief they’re working on trails. I could work for Patagonia, build up my savings account, and get great experience there. I could go down to kanab, and work as a dog caregiver at Best Friends Animal Society’s main shelter. Heck, I could find other things that interest me and that will provide me with what I find interesting and fun and knowledgeable, and maybe help figure out where i want to go in life and what really intrests me. But I feel so incredibly stuck.

I don’t mean for it to seem that I’m unhappy in salt lake. I love Sabrina so, so incredibly much, and I love the apartment, and the area, and all of the wonderful mountains and the few people I’ve made friends with. But frankly, sometimes, I feel like there’s that piece missing, that hole that bugs me in my mind that’s telling me I really have no idea what I’m looking for in life, what I’m interested in, and what I want to do. I’m not sure if it’s a product of my upbringing, or the fact that I was never the one making my choices on what to do/what to study/where to go, but I don’t know.

I’m not even sure if something like what I’m talking about is possible

I’m not sure if, even if it is, my parents or the school would allow me to do it.

The thing is, it would mean leaving everything I’ve ever known, leaving the girl who I’m madly in love with, leaving what is potentially the most stable my life has ever been, and tossing it to the wind in the mad hope that I’ll find a missing piece that I’m unsure if it even exists. And that terrifies me.