i am a fiercely independent woman. fiercely. i judge myself by my own standards. i make my own decisions. its what i do. and independence is extremely important to me in so many ways.
and besidese myself, my parents are the most influential people in my life. how they feel, what they say, do, or think are the only outside influences i generally consider when choosing things for myself, if i consider anything outside myself at all.
i have come to an important point in my life. i am graduating from college in a little over 30 days from now. its so scary to me, though, and i am starting to realize why. it has to do with direction.
my parents were able to guide me up to this point....
here i want to mention that i greatly admire my mother in particular. over the years she had truly become my best friend and out of everyone i am sure that she knows me the best.
like i said, my parents, especially my mom, were able to guide me up to this point. my entire life i was expressly told that i would go to college (for something scientific) and i would graduate... but then what? everyone seems to expect great things of me. my parents, my community. but noone can tell me what it is... i guess its not really their job to. but i am under a lot of pressure and i am very confused.
this is where the direction thing comes in. when my father was my age he had already dropped out of drexel (the university i attend) and had taken a job. when my mother was my age she had already been married for a year. she was about to graduate temple with a degree in architecture and really probably had less direction than i do now.
so my parents cannot tell me what to do. they cant offer me advice. they cant regale me with anecdotes about when they applied to grad school or when they found their dream job because neither has done either. they cant even relate to me on the level of being a single girl with a fierce independent streak trying to make a place for herself, trying to grow up on her own; my father for obvious reasons, and my mother because she never really was on her own, she moved from her parents home into a home with my father, she especially cannot understand me.
so i feel like i lack direction. i feel like all my parents have to offer me are warnings and regrets. warnings about the mistakes they made, regrets over the opportunities that have since passed them by. as all parents, mine want me to lead a better more fulfilled life than they had the chance to, but they cannot explain to me exactly how to go about such a thing, and i cannot seem to figure it out on my own.
grad school?
work force?
what do i want to do with the rest of my life?
i honestly wish i knew, or had someone to tell me.
