ever since high school, i’ve known i wanted to be a therapist. maybe it was because the first therapist i met at 17 told me i was entitled to be angry at my parents. maybe it was because so many of my friends confided their problems in me. maybe it was just a whimsical notion that became an entrenched idea. whatever the reason, i’ve always dreamt of one day being the person sitting in the chair with the calming manner, the wise, illuminating words.

so when it came time to select a college, i chose to go to mcgill university and enroll in their rigourous psychology major. and it was a really wonderful programme – both challenging and fascinating. i worked my ass off just to get “b” grades, but felt like i was learning so much. i envisioned doing some graduate work after getting my bachelor’s and perhaps specialising in children’s issues, before going to work in a school or hospital.

then, halfway through my degree, i decided to chuck it all in, take a year off from studies, and move to new york city.

in spite of all the odds (and my parents’ worst fears) i did eventually get back to school and complete my degree. after the year was over, i decided to transfer to nyu and finish up there. but everything was so different – i was a commuter student, working full time and taking classes full time. i was in an urban campus, with large classes, no quad or student pub – i showed up for my classes, dashed off to work directly afterward, and went home. i didn’t make a single school friend, or get to know any of my professors. i didn’t go to my graduation ceremony – one day my degree showed up in the mail, and that was it. i was busy with work and friends and my fiance and my pets. i was saddled with student loan repayments, and it never even occurred to me to take the gres.

and after a few years, my friends all started going to social work school. i’d begun to think that maybe i needed to look into some grad schools – part of me was pondering getting a social work degree as the quickest route to being able to do counselling, and part of me became infatuated with the idea of doing a doctorate in psychology. i looked at rutgers university, which offered a practical (rather than research based) doctoral programme, and was just over the river in nearby new jersey.

unfortunately, it was also a five year programme. i was working in social services and knew i didn’t want to be a social worker – and at the same time, i didn’t think i had the monetary resources or patience to live in new jersey for five years. so i stayed stuck. i stayed stuck in that limbo stage in new york for another 3 years, and *then* picked up and moved to boston.

when i got to boston, i had a hard time finding a job in social services that suited me. i ended up sliding into a dead-end finance job for a few years, got divorced, made a general mess of my life. after about four years, i felt like i needed to make a change. i still couldn’t decide between doing an msw or a phd, but i convinced myself i needed to at least take the gres so i could explore my options. so i bought the books and the simulated test – i re-learned how to find the volume of a cone, and how to solve algebraic equations. i practiced and practiced, getting better scores each time, so i went ahead and booked the exam slot.

and i bombed it. ordinarily, i am an excellent standardised test taker, but for some inexplicable reason, i just did horribly. i still don’t even know why i did so badly – i didn’t feel nervous or rushed or unwell. in fact, i thought i’d done reasonably okay until i saw the actual score. i couldn’t for the life of me figure out what had gone wrong. it was a pretty big blow to my psyche.

and then i started to worry about re-taking the exam, and perhaps doing just as poorly a second time. after all, a single set of bad scores can be explained away, but two sets of sub-par scores is a definite pattern. what if i tanked again? i’d never get into grad school. the self-doubt gnawed at me.

and so i did what anyone in that situation would do – i packed up and moved to london.

and here i am, almost 5 years later. still no closer to being a therapist than i was when i graduated from nyu 12 years ago. i’ve managed to paint myself into a career corner here in the uk, doing work that i am capable of doing, getting a paycheck i can live on, and hating every second of it. i’ve made noises about going to grad school here once i became eligible for resident tuition fees. now it’s time to actually act upon it.

i’m feeling rather paralysed by the enormity of it all. there are a lot of logistics to sort out – getting references when i have none, getting my ba accredited by the british psychological society so i can enter a graduate level programme, the not insignificant matter of finding some money for this harebrained scheme, finding a job that will allow me to work part-time and go to school… and getting all my shit together and applications in by january.

it means staying here in london until 2010 – a thought that makes my skin crawl with impatience. it means going into the slavery of debt when we wanted to save to buy a house. it means dragging my rusty brain and archaic skills into the 21st century. it means confronting all that self-doubt, and silencing twelve years worth of excuses, and committing to taking my future seriously.

my pulse races with the anxiety of it all. but i know it must be time – because there’s excitement beating under there as well.

okkervil river – no key, no plan

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