As I approached the new venture in my journal, I found myself mulling over what would be the best way to kick it off. I have always had trouble with beginnings. Even when I write stories, I start somewhere in the middle so I don't have to face the pressure of a stellar opening line. So if you ever get a chance to open one of my writing journals, you will see that there is nothing written on the first two pages for that very same reason. But, unfortunately, on a computer blog, there are no blank pages so I am faced with the grand task of overcoming my fear of the beginning and just going with it. So now that I have turned my beginning into some rant about beginnings I will get to what I really want to talk about: MY LIFE!! Aren't you excited?
So here it begins...(whoa that was tough)
Last night, I met up with my friend, Liz, who lived with me my senior year of college. Liz and I have known each other, since Freshman year when we connected as junior members of the Michigan Community Scholars Program. As a freshman, Liz became one of my constant buddies who coerced me into the night life of college and challenged my own perspectives on life. As the years went on, Liz and I found our own routes. She was accepted into the business school and I deviated from my once science-oriented goals to an English major. While I struggled through the stress of school and the mounting pressure of facing the dark events of my past, Liz let go of all her stress and drifted through the middle years of college with great indifference. Although we had found ourselves in completely different mind sets, we never ceased to share the both intellectual and introspective conversations that we had each time we met up. In a lot of ways, although we were never best friends, we developed a connection that always made me feel like I was never alone each day I woke up and felt lost in the world.
So when Liz left me a Facebook message in August stating she would be back in Michigan after the end of the internship she had in Colorado, I was initially apprehensive about meeting up with her. It wasn't that I didn't want to see her. But I was embarrassed to reveal to her that I had yet to settle into a real job (at the time I was still serving)and, to be honest, still felt like that girl in her first year of college staring at a list of majors and realizing that there were fifteen different things she wanted to do with her life all at the same time. It felt like defeat for me to walk out of college jobless and second guessing myself. Yet, I sucked it up and realized that more than anything else, I needed a chance to connect within someone else who had been living in the post-college world.
We met up at Dagwoods, per my request, for beers and a good chat. One thing that Liz and I always agreed on was the importance of great beer and the atmosphere of quirky joints. So, of course, one couldn't think of a better place. Right off the bat we fell into the same conversation have always been able to share and soon four hours had passed and it was midnight, although neither one had even noticed it. As we talked, we realized that in a lot of ways, we had been through a lot of the same things. She had scored a great year long Americorps position with a nonprofit that worked with charter school development in Denver, yet, it didn't quite measure up to what she hoped for and struggled through the year unable to make friends and contemplating her choice for a job route. As we spoke, I discovered that it may have seemed like she had things more together with her goals, but in the end, everything that she had gone through was exactly what I had been dealing with.
Leaving college is rough. The structure is gone and you are forced to shape your days not around classes, but a job and managing a house and just plain surviving. The people are gone. Let me tell you, making new friends after your first two years of college is nearly impossible. I don't know what it is. That is one thing I distinctly remember about coming back, I frankly didn't know how to make friends anymore. And all that confidence that they spoon feed you day after day in college in the form of "you can do whatever you want with your life" and "follow your dreams," IT'S BULL SHIT.
At the end of the night and our two beers, I felt closer to Liz than I ever had before. In college, we had been buddies, but now we are truly adult friends, learning to function in a world that doesn't seem to want people our age to excel and sharing everything we do along the way. Liz made me feel like it is okay to fail a little bit and that I'm not not alone in doing it.
Yet, to transition a bit from there, sometimes failure does come in a way that counters productivity, rather than stimulating it. Cue my mother's entrance.
So tonight Aunt Suz was hosting dinner with my parents and I. She had cooked up a big pot of chili and we were gearing up for a relaxing evening of catching up with my rents. Today I spent the work day up in Lake City breaking down irrigation piping, so when I got home from work I was dirty and beat. Figuring that probably it would be inappropriate to be covered with the dirt at the dinner table, I hopped in the shower. As soon as I got out, my mother banged on my door and asked if I was decent, which I was still in my towel, so close enough, I figured. My mom had her "mission voice" so I knew I was about to get a lecture. Immediately, she decided to lay into me about how I had my priorities wrong in my life because I volunteered with all of these activities and was a part of all of these things that were taking up my time and, therefore, I was neglecting spending time with my grandmother. Yes. My whole life should center around my grandmother. Before I could even respond, she was out of my room and I was left angry and crying for the next five minutes.
What really got to me was not the accusations that she made, but the fact that she didn't recognize what I was doing for myself. I am twenty-four years old and trying to the best that I can for myself. Unlike her, who graduated college and transitioned right into a marriage without having to worry about getting a job, I am forced to support myself in an economy that doesn't want me. I support myself entirely and found avenues to be successful so that I can feel like I am contributing to the world in a better way. Is there something wrong with wanting some things for myself? Is there something wrong with trying to beef up my resume so that I can continue to find a better job for myself? No. It is selfish of me to have a drive. It is selfish for me to try to survive. I should give up my free time for my grandmother. I understand where she is coming from. Over the last year, my mom has morphed into some super daughter who feels it is her mission to do absolutely everything that her mother tells her to do and it has consumed her life. But I can't understand how she doesn't see that it is destroying her relationships with her children.
I have been selfish. I have hardly seen my grandmother at her place since my grandfather passed. Although I do see her nearly every week at my parents' house, so it is not as if I have neglected the relationship. It's just that no one gets what I went through. When my grandfather passed away, I was the only around, since everyone was on vacation, so I had to be the one that went into Burcham Hills and talked with all of the nurses about what happened. I had to comfort my grieving grandmother. And I had to stare at the lifeless body of my grandfather just sitting in the room next to us. I watched my aunt and uncle burst into the room and literally scream out loud and disarmingly cry. I had to explain what happened over and over to every person in my family (which is too many people to count) and then was dragged into everything that went on after that. Funeral planning. Body handling. General family comfort.
I didn't think it bothered me. Or, I guess, I just didn't think about it. But my visits got less and less frequent. Going there makes me feel all weird. I can't shake what I went through. I volunteer in hospice, so I can handle death, but it something completely different when it is someone you know, especially your whole life. Unfortunately, although I have many wonderful memories of my grandfather, I still see that body in my head and it haunts me.
So I am pissed. Or at least I felt pissed. At this point, I have cooled down a bit, but I still feel the bitter taste in my mouth. What I realized is that my mom never once asked why I don't visit Grandma. She just accused.
So I guess I am turning over multiple leaves in my life. First of all, I am realizing that I not alone in my struggles for success and that I should truly embrace my own ability to discern what will work for me and recognize that it is okay to look for support from people you never expected. Also, I must see that there is no perfect job and that compromising is okay within limitations. Along with that, I have to come to terms with the fact that I can't please my parents for the rest of my life. Along with that, it isn't wrong to put some of my own goals as a high priority.
So this is a small beginning for me. And I am going forward from here. No blank pages in between.
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contemplative
drained
content
uncomfortable
sick