Mayday

May is upon us. May: the month of my day of birth, AP testing, and the end of another school year.

I rarely put my feelings out there on the Internet because I'm a private person and highly doubt that anybody in the world gives a crap what I have to think. However, I just felt like I needed to let this out so here it goes.

After conquering four AP tests this week and doing tragically on each of them, I'm officially burned out.

I really expected to feel better than I actually am. That's not to say I don't feel free because I do feel like I just unshackled four handcuffs that were locked so tightly on my wrists that they left marks that will remain there for the rest of my life.

But I do feel a slight regret (one of the worst feelings in the world) for not studying enough for the tests. I worked too hard this school year to get a poor score on these stinking exams because I was too lazy to pick up a prep book for any of the subjects. In my defense, I did try cramming chemistry two days before the exam but that was really it when it came to AP studying. In addition, I was juggling extracurriculars and prepping for the SAT simultaneously. It all just became too much but it's still no excuse and I have nobody to blame but myself. 

----

Then I started to deeply ponder about my future. 

I've always carved my own path since I was a little girl. I take pleasure in spontaneity but I can never leave my life unplanned. Things just don't pan out for me that way. I've always known what I'm going to do with my life, how many kids I'm going to have, and the plan B's for all of my plan A's. I don't like change because I don't adapt well to it. I'm afraid of change.

I always knew I would get into the medical field, whether that was influenced by my incessant devotion to "Grey's Anatomy" (though not so much this season) or my parents' careers in the healthcare field. Even if I did change from wanting to be a pediatrician, a surgeon, and an optometrist, I always thought healthcare was meant for me. 

Yet lately I've questioned everything I have ever planned for myself. While volunteering at a hospital, I met a doctor who told me that to become a doctor, I must feel like God is calling for me to do this. Do I really want to help others? Do I really have enough passion to drive me through eight years of expensive schooling (assuming I make it into medical school with the cutthroat programs) and another four years of a low-pay, workaholic lifestyle during residency? I'm not too sure anymore.

The image of my future has now shattered before me and I feel like my ten year-old self lost in a sea of strangers in some crowded marketplace in a foreign part of the world. I had painted my whole future for 17 years and now it's gone. 

I feel blind everyday as my dreams and ambition slowly slip away from me. I have no idea what I truly want to do in life. Some impractical part of me wants to lead a vagabond lifestyle or open up a bakery (I really do love baking although my most impressive concoctions have come from a box) while another part of me searches for a more practical career to pay the bills.

----

I know I'm being overly dramatic and absurd especially since I will probably be ten times worse emotionally in exactly a year from now, so close to graduation and embarking on the next chapter of my life. But these thoughts I have typed up for the world to see have failed to evade me and it was about time I let them out. 

I always felt old but after I turned 17, the gravity of how soon things are going to wind down just fell on me. My last year of high school is imminent (and those goddamn college applications) and in one year I'll be an adult, free from parental control and into the gloomy world of taxes, jury duty, and whatever the hell adults do. It's something I've dreaded for the past five years and I'm scared shitless.

Maybe I'm just crazy from this sleep-deprived month and beyond stressful week and tomorrow, I will wake up with my life together again. 

P.S. I applaud you if you made it through all that rambling.