Disclaimer: I wrote this last Thursday and deliberated on whether or not to post it all week (mostly due to it's negative and whiny nature) and finally decided to post it because this is honestly where I was at. I am in a little less desperation this week. Even though I have no more decisions made or clarity on these matters than last week, and even though I do still feel pressure, I have more peace now. And sometimes that's enough.
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Wow. Life sure is quite the little shove-you-down, steal-your-wallet, kick-some-dirt-in-your-face and then tell-you-to-get-up-and-go-to-work brat. I'm not Miss Brightside today.
I guess lately I've been in a sort of rut, mainly because it really sucks when you feel from all these different angles like you have to go get a degree but you just don't know what to go for at all and what you'd really love to do you don't have to go get a degree for. And don't get me wrong I actually like learning but I just can't pick a major to save my life. And when I do, I feel like I've made the wrong choice for one reason or another. That or someone else thinks I've made a bad decision and heaven forbid I change my mind one more time because then everyone will think I'm indecisive which I am but I'm trying so hard not to be because I feel like people don't think they can ever trust me with anything because I am bad at making the decisions I'm supposed to make about my own life.
I am twenty one years old. If I think about all the days that's been, it seems like a long time. But if you think of being in what feels like a crisis, at least what one I think should feel like, I think I'm way too young. Like, is this how people feel in crisis? Did theirs come from listening to everyone else too?? Gosh everybody has an agenda, don't they? And it sucks to be on the receiving end of that. Why do I have to care so much about what people say? Because when I do, I just end up disappointing some, if not all of them. What do I really want to do? I want to make art. I want to love and take care of people. I want to teach my future kids what's right. I want to be the best future wife and current girlfriend and daughter and sister I can. I want the disapproving stares to stop as I blabber on about the new plan I've decided on. I want them to say that they want me to love God and do what I see Him leading me to in life and to just enjoy it. But from most of them, it hasn't been that. "Don't get married til you're X years old." "Do what you want to do but just make sure you have a college degree for it." "Well, get a college degree for it, but make sure you get it from this school." "Well, this school's program will shred the rest of your life to bits so brace yourself to lose at least a little bit of all kinds of things you love." "Whatever you do, make sure you're passionate about it but you better decide what that is, stat."
And I can't give my advisor a good enough reason for what I want to do to keep her from laughing at me for being so unprepared but at the same time she's telling me that I have to know what I want to do and I'm telling you that it's impossible because if I knew what I wanted to do that would have everyone's approval, then I would already be doing it.
I have to choose what's practical but I have to choose what I'm passionate about but the two seem to clash and the truth is that nobody can help me- I have to choose- and I feel like I'm just here in the desert holding this scalding hot, shiny metal ball that's burning my hands but I have nowhere to put it but the sand and for some reason I can't bring myself to just drop it. But maybe I just need to drop the ball. Because it's really burning me. I don't really know what that means exactly but something along the lines of stop doing whatever it is that I keep on doing for fear of disappointing people even though it's kind of hurting me to keep on doing it. I don't know.
Don't get me wrong, because I do have people in my life who actually very lately have expressly told me that they support me no matter what I do or don't do and I can't explain how grateful I am for them and their support. But sometimes it just gets so hard with such pressure that I loose sight of the fact that it's only life. Nevertheless, sometimes it burns.