Day 20, Monday: Get real. Share something you're struggling with right now.

I am struggling with not being able to plan for the rest of my life.

What am I doing after I finish uni?
When should I start looking for a job?
Do I want to start looking for a job?
What kind of job am I interested in?
Where should I look for a job?
Where will I live if I'm looking away from home?
How far is too far?
Where does Michael fit in to all of this?

I don't know the next step, and I don't like not knowing the next step to be able to plan around. Michael says it's fun and exciting.. but when it means I'll be living at home with my dad, with a masters degree.. and I'm in a job that I'm over-qualified for. Hmph. And Michael, being in Afghanistan until September. Do I start before he gets back? Do I ask for that extra month off? He's just said that he'll probably be the most free from October on, I can't be starting a new job and asking to take my leave immediately. So do I not get a job until after Christmas?

WHAT DO I DO.

I can hear my boss in my head saying 'don't do anything just for a boy' but Michael isn't just any boy, he's THE boy, he's the best boy, I'd do anything for him. and then I hear my mum saying 'you've been working really hard for four years straight, I think you should take a bit of a break', and my sister saying (more generally rather than in relation to this) 'enjoy the time you get with Michael now before the rest of real-life gets to you'. And all of that tells me that the real world, and real life, can wait a little bit longer. I have so much time to be a social worker and start whatever qualification is in fashion (NQSW/ASYE), but I won't have this time with Michael again. But if Michael wasn't around, then I'd be jumping straight into it, but does that mean that's what I should do, really? I honestly don't think so. I think I could have any kind of job for a little while, I have support work for over summer to tide me over a bit. Michael is my priority at the moment. Perhaps that means, in the grand scheme of things, that the job that's meant for me isn't available until next year? Perhaps it's all already planned out? WHO KNOWS. I've already applied for one job and not got it, now I've applied for another, and there is another that I'm considering applying for. Maybe I should just do these two applications and see what happens? Michael doesn't even know if he's back for good in September or sometime earlier, but I'm personally working towards September because I can't let my heart hope that it's any earlier. So how can I let this decision ride on that? The army has never been great to Michael, it always messes him around, so I can't and don't expect anything to go perfectly this time either. He tells me not to base any of my decisions on him and to do what's best for me, but what's best for me is what's best for both of us, so how can I not partially base it on him?

I don't know. I honestly do not know.