The Yellow Brick Road is Overrated

All I want for Christmas is a Vogue subscription. I don't want a shiny new bike or a brand new iPhone, and last time I checked I have my two front teeth. My favorite part of the morning is putting an outfit together. I find nothing is more satisfying than when my boots, belt, and beanie coordinate. Fashion is an art, and Vogue is made up of the best of the best—the Picassos, the Monets, the O’Keefes—of clothing design. Vogue’s cover of Emma Stone caused my mind-set about my future to do a complete one-eighty. The day I opened Emma Stone’s issue for the first time, my cookie-cutter future went out the door. I had always liked looking put together, but as soon as I saw the Yves Saint-Laurent line I was a goner. I’m a full-on “fashionista”. I daydream about GUCCI dresses and Jimmy Choo shoes. One would think having a better grasp about the path I want to take would make me more confident. Well, guess what? I’m terrified.

I have always had a basic plan: get good grades and get into a good college. Over the years my plan has grown more complex. At the end of freshman year I had a breakthrough. I knew the answer to the existential question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Ladies and gents, I was going to be a journalist. That was the key! The final piece of the plan. I could now brave the endless badgering about my adult life at Thanksgiving without breaking a sweat. Yessir, every time one of my family members asked that fantastic question I would reply with a solid, “I want to be a political journalist.” Let me tell you, their reactions are priceless. It was perfect. My plan was fool proof. I even went to a journalism camp the summer after sophomore year. I was truly invested in journalism, so it was worth the money right?

I have a problem, and no I don't mean the tiny issue of me flipping through Harry Styles’s Another Man Magazine shoot for the three-trillionth time, I mean that now I am not certain about anything. I went from being self-assured to doubtful, because I think I know, in my heart of hearts, what steps I need to take, but it is not a “follow the yellow brick road” path that everyone expects from me. I am petrified that the moment I tell someone I’m thinking about attending an art institute in California to study fashion I will be laughed at, but I can find comfort in the glistening, glossy pages of my favorite magazine filled to the brim with inspiration. You might think it is silly to say Vogue revealed all the uncertainties in my life. Well, guess what? It did just that.