I’m lost. There I said it.

Now that I’ve put that to paper, I think I can start to explain my off-kilter scenario.

As of next month, I would be 2 years removed from graduation from college, and I’ve struggled to find a direction to go with since. Not to say I haven’t had one, but rather, I just can’t get out the bricks.

Let’s recap: I went to college back in 2007, under the Comm Arts degree program, estimated year of graduation, 2011. I went to school because I couldn’t do music full time like I hoped after high school. Of course, that was wishful thinking.

I knew deep down inside I wanted to do music, but the how of getting there was going to take some time.

I abandoned music for about 6 months, 6 months that were different. I went into college without a central direction. Just a goal to get a degree and fill in the blanks. I had a hankering for video editing and I think that’s what I wanted at least. I mean, I took some courses at high school and I was making strides but then I arrived to FSC and realized that things were different.

The closest I ever came to full on pursuit was the fall of 2008, taking a editing course and having a blast doing it. The next year I took another course in video tech but due to the extreme cost of things not to mention the shocking fact (to me) that it wasn’t as hopeful a market as I envisioned (every good job requires relocation), I freaked out.

Slowly and surely, the combination of bad grades, a confusion over my path post college, unresolved conflicts, personal betrayal, a romantic friendship and a severe case of self-abandonment drove me out of college for 6 months, where I was uncertain on if I would return. Only reason I came back was because I was politely forced into it by my parents.

So I returned to college, but this time there was no “go to college to get a career in this field” mindset, it was simply to escape and be done with it, and not have the stigma of “college drop out” or rather, “black college drop-out” hang around me.

I just went to class, cautious of all that had happened before and how I allowed everything to slip past me. It was a shell of defense I put up over myself. And gradually I broke this shell.

I found another field to pursue but it came at a later date.

As the time came for graduation I was just happy to be done, I had no exit plan, no “post-college” ideas going, just finishing up school and being…done. That was a mistake. And that was only amplified when I came within one point of graduating in 2013, and instead had to round back, drop out for the second time, and go through a depression of sorts. I didn’t go out, I stayed at home, I talked to almost no one about what happened, I just let it swallow me and I was of the mindset “it won’t ever work, so why try?”

So after another period of darkness I was once again forced to do this song and dance crap again, albeit in 5 weeks’ time. I just went through it, trying to reclaim my life from the throes of academia and attain freedom. I did.

After that, I went through the reality of the job market, with only an internship from 2012 as a marker of my potential and a connection. I found a job in Boston working at TD Garden for about 8 months, and after that wrapped up I went to a gas station to pay the bills for 3 months, quit in the midst of a hectic situation with management and rumors (untrue ones) about me leaving early one night. And then I was unemployed until I got a job at BJs in Northborough and I was there but I hated it, just felt like it was going backwards, and overly controlling in demands of life. I wanted stability, not chaos, not changing schedules, not a job that would be the same old stuff over and over again, the type of job that would become a fixture….

That’s where I think I lost my way in jobs. I have this fear of being stuck in a job for a long period of time and seeing my personal ambitions fade out. I heard it all the time from my co-workers, saw it all the time, and then I got really nervous, that I had spun into a lane that doesn’t allow an exit. I could see it now.

The job I started at 26, the job I stayed with until it was too late. When I couldn’t leave because I needed to stay for others who needed me to provide. Wife, children, family members. I just saw the future and I hated it.

However, that stuff doesn’t change as we hope. It stays a certain way, and it goes the way it wants. Case in point: my return to BJs’, 9 months after leaving for a job at Fenway Park (that I enjoyed but had a hard time justifying the pay vs the cost of getting to work/the exhaustion level). I was welcomed back but I’m very certain this won’t be for a long time. No longer than until something turns up.

Now I guess I need to find a passion that pays and something that I can make a career out of. Music production, video editing, photography, all of those thrown around. And for me, I need to find a path to get my  foot in the door. Music production is my #1, mainly because I’ve been entrenched in music for about 11 years now and I’m getting more confident in my skill set. Video editing is something I can do now, but I just need to get projects. Photography works but it’s way too seasonal to be stable (school photos, weddings, and engagements come to mind).

I just feel frustrated because I’m getting older, and I’m worried that certain things are slipping away from me before I have a chance to make something happen. So there, that’s what I’ve meant to say for the past 2 months.