The Beginning of the End

It's finally here. For the past 22 years this moment in my life has been lingering on the horizon, unreachable, but always there, lurking and waiting, and now I'm upon it. Somehow, without my even noticing, I crossed the valley and reached the point where sky meets land, the point that everyone assumes does not really exist until they are right on top of it and the breath is knocked out of them and they can feel their hearts seizing up. In about 3 and 1/2 months I will finally be graduating from college, a moment that stirs within me the most incredible mixture of utter terror and unadulterated joy that I've ever known. Maybe I'm being melodramatic, but I am absolutely terrified to think that soon I will be entering the work force, that I will be a "grown-up." I can't be a grown-up; I still get nervous raising my hand in class, even when I'm completely and totally confident that I have the right answer. How am I supposed to go on job interviews? How am I supposed to put on panty hose and sensible pumps and command to sort of respect that the businesswomen on TV have taught me to expect? I've already begun applying for jobs in places like New York and Boston, places that I've so romanticized in my mind that I imagine just living there will give me the sort of confident swagger that a young professional should have. I know it's too early to start applying for the kinds of jobs I want (publishing, magazines, all of the industries that my father assures me are quickly dying and so are wastes of my time, but from which I can't seem to turn my attention); most of their openings are looking for immediate hires, but I feel like if I can just get my name in their heads, maybe they'll look past my mediocre grades and minimal involvement. Maybe my sheer persistence will finally crack them and force them to give me a job. Maybe, like Anne Hathaway's character in The Devil Wears Prada or America Ferrera's character on Ugly Betty, the decision makers will be intrigued by my "differentness" and hire me on a whim, only to realize it was the best decision they have ever made. Or maybe I'm, once again, romanticizing the future and I'll end up working the drive-thru at the Burger Doodle and adopting stray cats, but I really hope not. I guess, at the risk of sounding absurdly cliche, only time will tell.
Here's a song:
It'll All Work Out by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers