I have been forming the beginnings of blog posts in my head literally since I finished my last one like three or four months ago. I do it all the time, I've noticed. Well, here we go again!
So, I'm afraid. That's a pretty human feeling, yes, but one I've been experiencing too often lately, and I think it's about time for that to stop.
I feel like mostly, I'm afraid of becoming irrelevant.
Yeah, I think that about sums up my past, mm, two or three years of life? It's possible two because three years ago I still had at least a good amount of my unabashed confidence left from my childhood. (Has it been three years since those days already?) Back then, the future was still this fantastic, faraway place that someday I'd come across, but things will have worked themselves out by that point, and I'll go into it either knowing what's going on, or with the security of time to figure things out along the way.
I really wish I was never disillusioned.
Well, of course that's not true at the same time......yes, it is. Ha.
What I mean is, I wish that this year didn't pass in a scarily quick flash and that I actually had more to remember from it. Now, of course I actually forget many of the mundane things that have happened to me over the years. But, I had dreams for this year that I formed over years of life. And, this year didn't live up to them, not even close, and I'm disappointed by that. Not that I'm looking for every dream I create to come true, but I'd like more than I got, and half of this at least is my fault. For a long time (and I mean looooong), I felt so jaded (I still do, actually) about the way my life was panning out. But honestly, how much better have things gotten while I sat here and voiced my displeasure over and over? Not much. Maybe up to a dull okay.
And that ain't me.
So, back to my original point: I'm afraid of being irrelevant.
All my life, I've read about, watched, heard, seen these people who lived interesting lives, said interesting things, made interesting things, even if just in my eyes. And I sucked up this information like a sponge. I was really blessed in the opportunities I had to learn about so many different things in life (thanks, Dad). So, all this information I was given set in me this sense of a life that I was forever seeking. Of course no one actually would dream of the life spent from 9-5 in a barren cubicle (would they?), but it was more than that: I knew that I wanted more from life even than the above-cubicle-average life. I wanted to see the world, I wanted to learn about everything on the Earth, and beyond.
Even just in my background (half of life spent in the suburbs, half in the country), I felt this sense of difference from the people around me because I had a more diverse understanding about different types of living. There is this constant sense of restlessness in me that I need to be out living this incredible life I've dreamed up for years.
Being in college, everyone tells me I've got time to figure it out. However, since I took a lot of AP courses in high school and did well enough for them to transfer for credit (and went to a school that accepts them, thankfully), I'm actually a semester ahead. So, being told "I've got time" when I'm actually ahead of those my age and thus closer to graduation in that sense, plus when I feel like I'm not yet living this life I want and I'm so impatient to be living, it can be extremely frustrating.
So, in the sense of life, I feel like I'm becoming irrelevant because I'm just floundering around in defeat at home while the adventure I want is just out of my reach. I feel like I'm going in the opposite direction of the growth I need to achieve to be ready for that life I want, and it scares me. Am I heading towards that cubicle life, and the misery I'd certainly feel there? (Literally, the first time I walked into a cubicle I felt claustrophobic). I want nothing more than to grow culturally and intellectually into the person I wish to be, but I'm having such a hard time figuring out the way to go about doing that.
"You've got time to figure those things out, Jane, don't worry."
Do I though?! I've got to pick my classes months in advance and I'm supposed to find a new stable job so that I can fund my life (how is it that people I don't know seem to have no issue with that?).
It's actually funny, because this April, after weeks of taking personality tests and talking with a kind adviser about my life and my interests, I did make a decision for my future: I chose to major in Spanish. And for at least a week or two, I felt fantastic about this decision and happy about the prospects of my future. But then, suddenly my parents had all these questions about the major, its stability, job expectancy, etc., and I felt under attack and lost confidence in my plans again. If my parents had their way, I'd be an engineer or a doctor, while my heart lies in language, art, history, nature, the written word, etc. Now, it's not to say that maybe I couldn't succeed in one of those professions, but I just don't see myself in them. But then the world seems to be against me in this because how many jobs do you hear of lately in my loves that are in high demand and fund a great lifestyle? Fewer, at least.
I want someone to tell me what to do.
I was talking about this with my good friend just the other day, and it's such an ironic thing for two teenage girls to say, isn't it? But truly, I want someone to look me up and down, know my head and what I've lived through, and say "You are meant to do _________. You're perfect for it, it'll keep you happy forever, and it'll fund the life you desire." I actually miss the structure of being told what to do with my life (at least in the form of guidance), because right now it feels like I'm a fledgling being gently tossed out of my nest instead of jumping by choice, but I'm still expected to learn to fly. And so, I'm scared. Because so far, no one's had that magic answer for me, and I don't know if anyone will. It's up to me, and that's a hard thing to grasp and actually bring to fruition. I'm sad to say that over the past year, I've taken to saying "I'll try" instead of "I will". But sometimes it was the best I could say.
On the other side of irrelevance, I'm also scared of becoming irrelevant to other people. I'm scared that having a whole year of not doing much on my own, people will stop being interested in me. With such a wide range of interests as I have, for a long time I felt like the glue that held together my group of different friends. But now that we're solid, I'm not as necessary to hold us together, and I feel myself falling into the shadows when we all share stories together, because I've got nothing new to say, and jokes about my situation can only be made so many times before they turn to true sympathy. I want my own stories. I want to have things to tell. And the thing is, I still have them. They may be of a different nature, or even of the same, but my mind's so stuck in the shadows now that I'll forget to even bring them up, because I'm used to talking about the goings on of those around me. I don't want to be a wallflower. I want to feel like a leader again, I want to feel fresh and exciting and like someone my friends look to for anything really, everything I had to give before. Because there's still more to give in me, I just have to find it. Easier said than done, but for now, it's summer, I'm barely working, and so I've got a lot of time with my mind. As one of many interesting things said in Eat Pray Love went, "The meditation room is within, Groceries. Decorate that." So, time for some soul-searching. I don't even care how cliche that sounds, because it's literally my only plan for myself for the next three months, and I think that's a beautiful thing to be able to say.
Happy living to all you other lost souls out there. "Whenever God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window!" :)
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