Here we go again

I am halfway through my first week of first year for the... third time. The week itself has been fine so far, just the usual fun trying to find rooms, lecture theatres, where to park and where to hang out on a packed campus between classes. Now that this is my third time in the ring of first year uni, that part of it isn't all that daunting. I guess that is the beauty of experience, whilst things being new and unfamiliar isn't all that fun, I know that it is normal and that it won't last long.

Something I didn't anticipate about this week is how much anxiety it has brought about. The straight from school first years are a lot more fussed about not having the text book in the first week and being 10 minutes late because they couldn't find the tutorial room. 

These past few days the reality of my educational choice has come home to roost. I AM A FIRST YEAR AGAIN; I am right back to the start and I will spending 3 or 4 more years doing undergraduate study. 

My brain has been running at a million miles per hour trying to plan the rest of my life.  I am worried that I should be thinking about moving out of home; not because I want to or because my parents want me out of the house, but because I feel like at my age I should. I have started panicking that I'm going to be "old" by the time I finish this course and afraid that if I want to do postgraduate study after that then I will be ancient by the time I actually start my career.

Then I'm afraid that if I were to actually meet someone who'd want to reproduce with me and if I want to reproduce with them, my career would only just be starting by the time I might want to do that. 

Then I worry that if I'm not even going to be "ahead of the game" enough to live a basic, normal life in the right order, then what hope do I have of achieving the bigger, crazy dreams I have for myself?!

My brain is going at Usain Bolt pace down the slippery slope of my imaginary future and it is freaking me out. All this anxiety has brought home to me how much I do compare myself at other people and measure myself against societal expectations. In sociology, my Arts major, they had a term for that thing most of us feel we have to live up to: they call it the "social clock". It is a similar idea to the "biological clock" that apparently women of a certain age can hear ticking when they want to get pregnant. The "social clock" is that thing that makes us feel like we ought to do certain things at certain times in our lives; the right age to learn to drive, move out of home, get married, get a job, etcetera. 

From my studies in sociology and my reflective nature, I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't base how they feel on the views of other people. The home truth of this particular panic moment is that I do compare myself to others constantly and base much of how I feel about myself on how I measure up in this comparison. Naturally, in this comparison, I only put myself up against others who I view as being ahead of me.

I'm not that far out of step with the social clock, but it is ticking really loudly in my head. From talking some of my friends about this stuff I know I'm not alone. I think when you are young, everything in life seems like a race. 

So much about youth is about "firsts". It starts in infancy when parents compare when their children first learn not talk and walk. In primary school it becomes about first days at school, first competitive sporting matches and first homework assignments. Through late primary school and high school it only intensifies and the first become more obvious and awkward, firsts to do with puberty and sex as well as sport, music and study. 

Growing up and during school, just about everything is a race. The milestones are specific and the timeline is rigidly outlined, whether it be the school year level system, musical instrument grades or sporting team age groups. Since leaving school, the path to take in life appears to be far less rigid. However, the further I get from school, the wider the variety of choices get, the more I realise that I do feel this huge pressure to make my life fit a very rigid idea. 

I had a chat a great chat with my Mum about this stuff and she was great. She told me all the right things and reminded me that I'll probably spend a huge chunk of my life working, paying my own bills and worrying about giant grown up pressures of life. I don't need to rush my education and I need to remember that at 5 days shy of 22, to most people, I am still young. 

I'm trying really hard to train my brain not to think this way. Whilst a level of organisation and planning is good, I don't need to have my whole life sorted right now. I am so lucky and thankful to have parents who are happy to support me and seem to like having me around. Even writing this I worry that I shouldn't rely on my parents just because they are happy for me to.

I need to calm down. I need to be grateful for what I have. I need to spend more time trusting my own judgement and actually living my life, rather than being regularly struck down by panic. 

Thanks for reading my rant and to quote Ellen Degeneres, be kind to yourselves.