Restless

My roommate is moving, summer is here, and the time has come again for me to get a little stir crazy. I start looking at college catalogs this time of the year, every year, in hopes of finding some Masters program, or perhaps a program for a second bachelors degree that suits my interests, my hopes, and my needs. My problem is not that I can't find anything I want to do, but that everything I find is something I want to do. I spent the morning drooling over a few course cataloges I have amassed over the years, and folding and unfolding corners of pages for classes I want to take. I finally decided to make a list of everything, regardless of how reasonable it seemed, and to put it in order of priority. These are the classes I dream of mastering, and as you can see, they do not lead in any particular direction whatsoever. even putting them in a prioritized order is causing the pit of my stomach to hollow out with anxiety. I keep having to ask myself if I am putting it in order according to what I want or according to what is responsible. I keep re-ordering them both ways. Here it is, according to what I want. Now who wants to volunteer to pay my tuition for me?

• Beginning Italian
• Chemistry (Have to admit I've actually taken this one several times, I just really really really want to pass it.)
• Technical writing
• Humanities
• Tap Dance
• Accounting
• Organ Lessons
• Photography
• Anatomy/Physiology
• Culinary Arts
• Human Growth and Development
• Children's Literature
• Personality Theory
• Computer Engineering (Just an intro course)
• Linguistics
• Business (again just an intro course, and perhaps an entrpreneurship class)
• Tailoring/Costuming
• Hiking
• Yoga
• Beginning Social Work
• Grammar
• Communications
• Economics (Just an intro course)
• Marriage and Family Relations
• Education (leadership and theory classes)
• Novel Writing
• Genetics
• Organic Chemistry (contingent of course on whether or not I can ever pass a chemistry class)
• Genetics
• Oil Painting
• Philosophy

You see, the problem I have is that I simply do not know enough about anything. And as I frantically search for a new roommate with the plan of settling into and staying in the same old routine, there is this nagging sound at the back of my brain and at the front of my heart. Go back to school, you aren't getting any closer to your goals and you certainly aren't getting younger. But how? I can't see the end from the beginning. Heck I can't even see the beginning from the beginning. And even if I did manage to get back to school and make progress towards that elusive Masters Degree, you should see that list of possibilities.... It's even longer than the list of classes I want to take. And the hollow in my stomach is just getting deeper and more painful.

With Roomie leaving, this would be the perfect time to just pick up and start something new. But with the job situation the way it is, it seems pretty irresponsible to do that without any sort of a plan. And the arguing in my head is getting louder and the pit in my stomach is getting deeper. Life used to be so straightforward. What happened?