For the moment, Mrs. Clinton may appear to be a figure of nearly limitless possibility, and her name has come up for prestigious jobs: president of Yale University, head of George Soros’s foundation. But being Hillary Clinton is never a simple matter, and her next few years are less a blank check than an equation with multiple variables. Her status is singular but complicated: half an ex-presidential partnership, a woman at the peak of her influence who will soon find herself without portfolio, and an instant presidential front-runner (a title that did not work out well last time).

Mrs. Clinton may find that her freedom comes with one huge constraint. The more serious she is about 2016, the less she can do — no frank, seen-it-all memoir; no clients, commissions or controversial positions that could prove problematic. She will be under heavy scrutiny even by Clinton standards, discovering what it means to be a supposedly private citizen in the age of Twitter. With the election four years away — a political eon — she will have to tend and protect her popularity, and she may find herself in a cushy kind of limbo, unable to make many decisions about her life until she makes the big one about another White House try.

“If you’re thinking about running for president, does that affect everything else?” asked former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York, who once agonized over the same choice and whose son Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo may find his own prospects shaped by what Mrs. Clinton decides. “Yes. Once you make your decision, everything clears up.”

Still, Mrs. Clinton faces some immediate choices, which nearly two dozen current and former aides, friends and donors described:

¶ Should she team up with her husband again?

Last summer, Bill Clinton expressed doubt about whether his wife would join forces with him at the foundation that bears his name. “She has to decide what’s best for her,” he said in an interview. “It might be better for her and she might have a bigger impact if she has a separate operation.”

The question is a fraught one. The climactic moment of Mrs. Clinton’s career came in 2000, when after years of supporting her husband’s campaigns and jobs, she struck out as a solo artist. Would rejoining his team be a step backward? Many aides said no. “She’s revered and admired as her own person,” said Lissa Muscatine, her longtime adviser.