I graduated!!!!
and naturally I made a zine about it
This is essay is also available as a zine! <3 An online version is available here. A printable version is available here—just download it as a PDF, print double sided, cut in half hamburger style, and staple the two halves together.
I graduated from my Master’s program and turned 30 all in the last week. This is monumental. It’s all part of my Saturn return, of course. If you aren’t familiar, a Saturn return happens in your late 20s, and it’s when Saturn returns to the sign it was in when you were born, and it’s supposed to be when shit hits the fan. You figure out who you are or what path you’re supposed to go on. I think it’s just our way of putting a label on the tumultuous time that is going from emerging adulthood to just plain, ole adulthood. It’s true, I have arrived!
I think I’ve cracked the code on who I am and the path I’m supposed to go on. I spent most of my 20s trying to figure this out. I would ask everyone around me, “What should I do for a career?” and consult every personality test.
An astrologer once told me I need to be in a career that involves a lot of thinking and talking. My Myers-Briggs says I could be a musician or HR manager. My Enneagram says I could be an event planner or photographer. My Hogwarts house says I could be Voldemort or whatever. If these feel impersonal, it’s because they are. What could a test possibly tell me about what I should do?
Grad school was the first time I’ve been encouraged professionally to chase my particular talents and interests. This led to my thesis on teen drama fans and grief, three conference presentations, a paper I wrote for a journal with my undergrad mentor, two department awards, and the Distinguished Graduate Award at the university level. I love writing and teaching and researching and hosting and making zines. I think I’m really good at it all, too. But is this really that big of a surprise?
Luckily my mom and dad always told me I could do anything I wanted to do. So I've been unafraid to try things that interested me all along. I wrote a zine about a Webkinz frog when I was 7 for crying out loud!!!!
But it can be really scary to know if what you’re doing is right. There have been many times when I tried to grasp life with my hands and shake it and demand answers: Who am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to do? Am I making the right choices?
But the reason why I’ve never gotten answers is because I can’t grab life like it’s a Magic 8 Ball and get a simple solution. There are none to be had. I firmly believe things do not happen for a reason—this would be only advantageous for like five percent of the population if so; instead we have power to pick and choose and define what life looks like for us.
One of my favorite authors Emily Henry says she doesn't outline her books before she starts writing. She just gets to know her characters deeply and starts crafting the story starting from page one, surprising herself along the way. I'd like to think that's what life is. And the more you know your characters, or yourself, the better the story turns out.
It helps knowing I’m a Taurus sun in the 10th house ENFP Enneagram 7-with-an-8-wing Slytherin, but a personality test was never going to tell me what to do. But the more I know myself, the more I can trust in the story I'm creating.
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