whither must I wander?

As I come up to a huge month of change and events I can't help but feel extremely anxious for my future. I defend my thesis this Thursday, I'll find out if I am accepted or rejected from 4 schools within the next two weeks, I'm going to a conference at the end of the month and I'll be celebrating another birthday. Then I graduate for the second time in 7 years. I don't know what is in store for me, where I'll be in the next six months, or in the next two months for that matter. It's easy to get all disparaging, to think about the missed opportunities, the time I may or may not have wasted in the last 4 years since I graduated the first time. It's easy to heap regrets on regrets, and for some reason that is all I can seem to do. When I ask myself the question, "Am I where I want to be? Have I done what I wanted to do? Am I on the path to where I want to go and who I want to become?" I don't even know what the answer is, but I have a sinking feeling that it's a big resounding no.

I don't like thinking this way, but the truth is I'm scared. I'm scared out of my mind.

Appropriately I've been listening to this song a lot this week. It's a song based on a poem by Robert Louis Stephenson, and is on the Martha Wainwright album I'm in love with.

Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather:
Thick drives the rain and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree,
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door -
Dear days of old with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.