I have been a student for as long as I can remember. I took no time off in between high school and college or college and grad school. Since it’s only the beginning of June and I wouldn’t be in class right now anyway, it hasn’t quite hit me yet that I’m not a student anymore. I expect I’ll have some sort of deep existential crisis in September when, for the first time ever, I will not be starting a new semester. But at least then I’ll be in a short-term hermit in New Hampshire, which I’m hoping will have a soothing effect on any crises, existential or otherwise.

One part of not being a student anymore has hit me, though. The future used to be parsed out to me in neat little segments. Next up: four years of high school. After that: four years of college. Then three years of grad school. Now?

A summer back in the hometown. The rest of the year hermiting (can’t wait!). And then . . . just future. One giant mass of it.

Depending on what on earth I decide to do after hermit life, maybe there will be some little sections. But for the most part, it’s just future becoming present becoming past. A past that I hope I can be proud of, as I am for my student past. I just don’t know what it’ll be yet.

Of course there’s one thing that I hope my future and my future past will contain: published books, with my name on them. So that’s why my current giant mass of present is write, write, write, write, write.