The Beginning

I was one of the lucky ones. After graduating from high school in 2014, I was given the opportunity to continue my educational journey all the way to Georgia where I would attend university for the next four years. In high school I was quite the nerd, I spent my homeroom and on occasion my lunches in the social studies office, grading homework and interacting with the people I admired most; the history teachers. Through my relationship with the history teachers at my school, I got a place volunteering directly under the librarian at my county history museum's library and archives. This opportunity extended itself to me volunteering at the children's history camp held by the museum during the summer season. Due to these interests and experiences, history seemed like the natural choice for my college major. I made almost no consideration of what I would do after I graduated, my main goal was to work through this step of my life. I graduated last May (2018) with my history degree and a good GPA. I had applied and was interviewed for a few flight attendant jobs, but turned away from them to further my education.  My dad led me towards an online graduate certificate in software engineering foundations, which would lead into a software engineering masters. I felt like this would give me a marketable skill set. But after being in the classes for two months, I realized I took on more than I could handle and dropped out. I went back to my roots and applied to two masters programs that would prepare me and supply me the certification needed to be a secondary school history teacher. I got in to both programs, was all signed up for classes at my alma mater, but pulled out right before signing a lease once it dawned on me just how much debt I was going to be in for a profession I was not even sure about and has little financial return and job opportunities to be worth the debt I would incur. For the last month I have been a near constant quarter life crisis over the next steps to take for my life and future career. I resigned up for a couple software engineering classes, but other than that I have no real direction with my life. I am currently working at Starbucks and the health food store job I worked throughout college to pay my bills. I moved back in with my parents and am at a dead end. At 23 it feels to me that all my prior decisions in life have led me astray. I'm in a funk. I'm unsure of myself and am lacking confidence. I am no longer doing what I enjoy, I am not spending time with people I am close to. I am not eating healthy, or following my prior passions. But I want to change that...

Whenever I watched videos on YouTube or read blogs about post-graduate confusion, the people I would see talking about the subject were already through that point in their life. They had found themselves, had successful careers and a fulfilling personal life. They came to the internet to give advice and encouragement with the attitude of: "You can do it too!!!" I want this blog to show a different side of things. I am want to use this blog to document and hold myself accountable to moving forward and becoming a better version of myself, becoming who I want to be as a person. My posts from now on will be following me getting healthy, trying to develop my skills and and working to move towards being a better person! Hopefully this is a start to a life changing journey. I want to document it, because I know a lot of other young people are in the same boat as me. And if I learn any important lessons on the way, I want to them to be available to anyone who could use them. So to anyone who may read this blog I want to say thank for you for your time and welcome to the journey!

- Elle