direction

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.

outlets

i dont know if this blog will still serve a purpose in my life. under the tutelege of my mentor i have found a number of different outlets in which to express myself. i am a more effective verbal communicator and have improved on organizing my thoughts when i speak, and also on taking risks and speaking up instead of holding back. my writing has improved and i have written a number of poems. also, i started on a story... a piece of fiction. i just finished it a couple hours ago. i had been working on it for months.

i have to say that writing a story is the most amazing thing. the experience goes so far beyond putting the pen to paper. i was able to write down my past, present, and future. my hopes, and fears. in a piece of fiction, there is so much of ME in it. i was just astounded. my hand seemed posessed as the characters found their own voices and spoke and the settings seemed to choose and describe themselves. i feel like if i had known it was like this i would have been writing fiction for years now (as it stands, this is the first piece i have ever written). its kind of like a happy lucid dream, where you are in control in a way, but not and everything seems way too real.

anyhow. this is a brief explination of why my blog has been out of commission for so long. its partially because between school and work the past few months i have hardly had time to think, much less write. and also because i dont have thoughts that sort of just steep in my mind anymore. now i let them out one way or another.... but who knows how long this will last

moment of midnight honesty

95% of the time, a guy is just something i like to have. something to keep around and make myself feel good: what a wonderful thing i possess. its silly and shallow and weak-minded, but at least i admit it. for so many years such things were a major preoccupation. i felt incomplete when i didnt have a BF, and when i did i would work and work to change him into something that other people would envy or at least admire. shameful, i know.

but these days i live for the other 5% of the time. that rare occurrence when i meet someone who could really mean something to me or someone who i really want to get to know. Someone that i want for them to want to be around me, not to possess but to share something interesting, if not special, with just them.

but this mindset poses its own set of problems as such men are few and far between. and even when i come across one, the chances are equally dismal of him actually being interested in me. and when that dissappointment surfaces, i have no fall-back guy to pump my ego. :sigh: i have only met two or three such men in recent days and failed in creating something romantic with any of them, not to say that it was a waste of time. but its increasingly difficult to keep myself from just dating any attractive thing that comes my way, or falling back into a relationship with someone i already decided isnt right for me.

this is a pretty pathetic entry, brought on by my meeting someone new and interesting who i really want to get to know seriously. and facing the possible third dissappointment of the past 6 months. i guess i'll never know if i dont at least give it the ol' college try. but the sheer pitiful-ness of this entry will probably lead me to delete it in the morning.

im not a woman who centers her life around romance anymore. i'm pretty anti-relationships and rather frigid to be perfectly honest. but every once in a while i will meet someone who makes me feel like i would have something to loose by not getting closer to them. i guess the point is that this is one of those times. and the second point (yea, there can be two) is that this is one of those honest, introspective moments that only happens at 2 am after a full day of work and an equally exhausting night. sorry for the self-centered nature of it all. i promise more interesting writing next time.