It has been one day since I officially ended my job contract, two weeks since I wrote my last exam, and 20 minutes since I had something to do. I slept in because I could, took my sweet time making myself a fresh berry smoothie and Facebook creeped my friends to see what they were doing with their time off. I find myself in a rut, but it’s a rut I dreamed of during my late-night paper-writing sessions and deadline-taunting interviews. It’s a rut of having nothing to do.

I go for my runs and stick to my training schedule because the girls and I have a 10k to run in May. That’s like an hour, an hour and a half tops of my day. I have my meals which I now make super-slowly. I walk to the store rather than bus whenever I need something and I find myself just waiting for things on screens to entertain me. The Internet, MTV shows, television movies, even solitaire. And that takes up most of my day. When I think about it, the carpe diem fairy in me laments and slumps over her seize the day scepter at what a couch potato I am. This, I tell you, is not a dream come true. I feel gluttonous and slothful at how lazy I am! I have just spent an intense four years working my butt off for something, and now is the time when I’m supposed to find out what that something is. I am supposed to be figuring out how to fill in that blank, and instead I am following along on the 30-minute journeys of bratty teenage girls planning coming-of-age parties that are nearly 20 times the size of my wedding budget.

“Enjoy this,”

“You’ve earned it,”

“This will only happen once in your life,” people tell me. Yes, that’s all true. I am waiting until fiancé and I move to find my job, THE post-graduate job that will be my first foray into full-on grownup mode. That’s two months from now. Until then, should I get entrepreneurial and start a car washing business (services completed in a bikini for an elevated price?) Should I read as many books as I can so as to become well-versed in the sorrows and celebrations of human existence, at least in my mind? Should I volunteer for the next two months and fill my days with work? Should I continue with a daily schedule that varies up the following: run, sleep, tan, eat, TV?

I feel like I’ve won some sort of lottery and don’t know what to do. It can easily become a curse and a guilt-tripping burden. I’ve done nothing to “earn” a two-month life of gluttony, have I? And yet, people tell me that I am so lucky to have so much free time, two whole months of weekend! It sounds kind of cool when I say it like that, doesn’t it? Hmmm, but Looney Toons reruns and eating Froot Loops on the couch is only a thrilling experience because it happens so rarely in the real world.