some self-induced paralysis

It's 1:28 AM right now and I should study or go to bed (or study and go to bed, ahaha) but I know that at this rate I'm just going to stay up thinking so I might as well try to talk it out here.

Sometimes I'm fine and sometimes I'm hit by a wave of intense fear and anxiety. I can write about it and analyze it and talk and talk and talk about it and still be hit by it anyway; swamped by it, bowled over by it, totally engulfed. It's visceral and irrational and random. I don't know what triggers it. Usually it's thinking too much about the future. I know there are girls who like to plan out their dream house and husband and name their 2.5 kids and dog and I don't understand that, I don't understand how they can look 20 years into the future and feel secure and confident and optimistic. I can't look 5 years into the future without feeling stressed and pressured.

In The Bell Jar, I remember Sylvia Plath's narrator (who was probably based off of herself) saying something about her future and how all the opportunities in her life were laid out before her like a fruit tree, she only had to choose the fruit; but she didn't know what to pick, she waited too long, everything shriveled up and then she had nothing. I remember feeling a shiver of recognition-- yes, yes-- because that's me, I don't know either, I can't pick either. I don't know what to do. I can go to grad school in history or literature. I can apply to law school and see where that takes me. I can drop out of school and write. I can teach English in Korea/Japan. I can research Zainichi Koreans and ethnic identity in Japan. Maybe link that back to grad school. Maybe not go to school. Maybe join Ruth's farming, anti-capitalist art colony. Maybe not.

I'm just so scared that I'll make the wrong decision that I don't want to make any. And instead of facing life like the responsible mature adult that I should be, I just want to sleep.

The future would be so much easier to handle if only I wasn't so afraid of it. What is with this inexplicable sadness in my life, why can't I just be content.