Do you know what's sad? Lying awake on your parents' couch, a quarter of the hour into mother's day, not knowing where your life is headed. It's an incredibly frightening thought.
I don't know where I'm going with this.
And though that's true for this post, too, I'm really referring to, well, life. I guess it all somehow started with reading a list of where the 2011 class is going from here, and chick flick movies about starting families and careers, and discussing my body of an eighty year old--sexy, yeah? Never do all that in a day, I suppose.
So, I get worried. I look up APA-accredited PsyD programs, and the admission requirements for about a hundred of them. I compose a single list of what I should aim for. All so I can tell myself, there, now you know. But I don't, do I?
I mean, I know that a week from now, for some unknown reason, I'm flying to fucking Nova Scotia. In reality I'm just blowing three grand or so, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm not even going to ever fucking use French. Maybe I'll visit. Once. Then what? (And now watch me have (luckily?) jinxed my life into taking a pathway where I'll use it daily or something.)
I know I plan on going to graduate school, and for a doctorate of psychology. I don't even know what kind of therapist I'll be, or what research I'm going to do next semester, or what state I'll be in three years from now--or if I'll get into a good program and not just be working some lame side job. And then I realize, why the hell am I willingly plaguing my body with hernias? It's not even my birthday yet; I'm not even twenty years old. I'm not supposed to know what I want to do with my life.
Yet then I am frustrated because, regardless of wants, I don't know what will happen with my life. I'm convinced someone knows, and they aren't sharing the details, and it drives me crazy. Don't they know I hate wasting time?
Then I look back at my wasted English and Education classes. I realize I'm maybe a 2 out of 10 on the irritation scale about wasting those hours/dollars/sweat. I realize that the only way I'd really be mad is if it was going to take me longer to graduate or something because of it.
There are so many possibilities with life, you know? Maybe I shouldn't go the therapist route. Maybe I should be some sort of journalist. Maybe I was supposed to be technologically limited in high school, inspired to go work on films. Maybe I'm supposed to be some sort of entrepreneur. I realize the disappointment within myself that I can't take risks. Ever. I'm not a risk taker. Blowing savings on a ticket up north on a language I'll never use, that's the riskiest I've ever been.
Ha. Wasting classes. Yeah, the extra money and studying that I wasted, that's annoying. But it's the time. And time can be wasted in all kinds of ways. Including relationships. I look back on the pathetic-just-short-of-six months--mind you, that's a mere 1/40th of my life--that I've spent next to some douche bag. Three utterly pathetic boys I was ten times better than.
You know, I look at the things life has dished out at me, and I wonder what I did. I wonder what the punishment is for, or maybe if it's training. Molding process. I wonder if life is going to make it up to me if it's the latter. If maybe one day some really wonderful things will happen to balance out the scale. And I honestly often doubt it.
But then, then I just realize that I need to unpack my car, and find my Lexapro. That I need to pack my bags, enjoy my week, then learn some French in Canada and take it day by day. That I need to focus on the now; not before, not after.
Yet you hear two different philosophies: good things come to those who wait, and grab life by the horns. So which one is right? Am I supposed to be patient and things will simply work out, or do I have to go looking for them? I'd attempt to do either if I knew. But this time, there is no in-between.
My little posted a Donnie Darko quote on Facebook a few minutes ago: "Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?"
Sometimes, I do feel other-worldly. Obviously not what the quote was referring to exactly, but it's what it made me think of. I never feel as if I fit in just right. There's something awkward about these joints.
