"after all, it is the adventure that counts"

repayment

Today I fidgeted nervously in front of a bald man at the bank while he explained to me the process of student loan repayment. This added curious spice to the situation of failure and inertia that I am currently in; suddenly, now, the thousands of dollars I slung willingly at education are in need of repayment.
I am not a unique case. Thousands of us mildly talented, academically successful types find themselves spurned by the plan they thought would carry them through the next phase of their lives. It was so easy to think that because I cared, because I tried, it would work out. But it simply isn’t like that, which is one of the oddest discoveries for a thoroughly American youngster. Sometimes, no matter how hard you work, you can’t be the self made man. You can only pick up the scraps.

My scraps are many. I feel sort of dismantled by these circumstances, incapable of moving forward because the bottom fell out entirely. I was supposed to be listening to the bald banker as he explained the details of my debt. But I spent the better part of that 20 minutes nursing a steady undercurrent of questions: What am I even good at? What did I do for 4 and a half years? Why am I sitting here discussing interest rates?

The odd thing, the very strange and terrifying thing, is that I’m the only one who can answer those questions. It was always easy to mouth the plan I believed in, the goals I had, the aspirations I arranged to fit what seemed best at the time, because the circumstances I was in seemed to echo them. That’s what college is, really - an echo chamber, where whatever you’re yelling loudest for comes back to you, making it seem true. Now, without that comfort, determining that I can only listen to my own voice - well, that’s another kind of repayment entirely.