glimpses of my identity crisis

Ok, I know this isn't a big deal. I still have my health, I have food and a place to live. I have an education... too much education, if you ask me. I am poised to enter professional life, with my professional degree in hand...

But, you know, I don't really want to enter professional life. I mean, my student loan debt won't allow me much room for recalcitrance, but still... I'll do it, but I won't like it.

For instance, my earrings. I will have to do something about them because they aren't very professional. My ears are full of standard-issue, surgical steel, circular barbells. These are not the pearls or diamond studs of my future colleagues. These are the ubiquitious badges of late-90's tattoo culture. And I *like* these ubiquitous badges. I don't want to change them out.

I could write a lot right now about the struggle to jump classes, from blue collar to white. I could write a lot about how my gender expression will be challenged within this very conservative field I have chosen for myself. I could speculate that perhaps I chose this very conservative field for the express purpose of having that challenge. Who knows.

All I know is that, right now, I feel I'm being forced by circumstances to walk the plank: take off the earrings, put on a professional disguise and try to convince someone to hire me. It makes me feel dirty inside. And angry. And scared.

Is it too late to run away with the circus?