This feels like an identity crisis, but maybe I’m just growing up

I quit volleyball my junior year of college.
After playing my entire life, I just… stopped.
and now that I’m a senior and graduating in August, it’s like the silence is louder than I ever thought it would be.
no practices, no bus rides, no games, no team dinners.
just me, alone with a body that doesn’t know what it’s training for anymore.

I thought I wanted to be a teacher.
a high school history teacher, because I love history— I could talk about it all day, I find it so fascinating.
I could go on and on about revolutions and war and the subtle resistance of people who had nothing left but hope.
but, as of Monday I have officially dropped my education minor. I’m starting to wonder if I ever wanted to teach in the first place.
or if I just picked something easy for my genius.
something that sounded good, made sense, gave me direction.

but, then again, making sense isn’t the same thing as being right.

so now what?
law school?

I’ve been entertaining the idea.
I think part of me just wants to throw myself into something again.
something hard. something consuming.
I miss what it felt like to give everything to one thing.
to feel that fire. the tunnel vision. the drive.

but do I want to be a lawyer? or do I just miss the feeling of being sure about something?

I genuinely don’t know.
I’m 22 and having a full-blown identity crisis.
and everyone keeps telling me that it’s okay not to have it figured out.
that I’m young. that it’s normal.
but if it’s so normal, why do I feel like i’m either spiraling because I can’t figure it out
or shutting down completely because it’s all too overwhelming to even try?

I feel like there’s no middle ground.
just this constant, exhausting cycle of pressure and paralysis.

and the thing is, I do have things that I love.
I started this blog. I built this website.
I pour my heart into these words.
I paint—I have pieces that feel like they hold my entire soul.
I love to create. to express. to connect.

but none of those things feel like they can support me.
at least not in the way the world demands it to.
and so here I am, standing at the edge of adulthood, being told to pick a path
when all the ones that feel like me don’t lead to stability.
and all the ones that promise stability don’t feel like me.

maybe this is the harsh reality of growing up that no one actually warned us about.
not just paying bills or filing taxes—
but grieving the life you thought would come easy
and learning how to build something real from the wreckage of not knowing.

I don’t have a neat ending to this.
no five-year plan, no answer, no clean bow to tie around the chaos.
just this:

if you’re feeling lost too, you’re not alone.
and maybe that’s all we get for now—
the comfort of knowing that none of us are really sure what we are doing.
but we’re still here. still trying. and still becoming.

i don’t know who i’m becoming—but i know i don’t want to become someone just because it makes sense on paper.