Dear friend & college apartmentmate Meghan came to town to hang with me last night. I rather enjoyed our conversation, catching up on life and ambitions and conquests and dreams. She kept stating how she missed living in Kutztown, how quaint & quiet it is, how pastoral and friendly.
I find I'm becoming disinterested.
Many folk around here are quite happy and do good in marrying and making babies. But there are others out there living what I dream about; traveling the country, getting a master's degree, homesteading, having decent full-time jobs.
When will I get there? Living the dream?
high adventure, fearless cooking, insight and humor accumulated throughout a 27-year journey...
2 comments:
I hear ya. Let me respond with a little anecdote.
My friend Dan is the social media editor for The Denver Post. When I first met Dan, he was explaining why he "graduated so late." His definition of late being December 2009 (four years would have been May 2009), because he was interning with DP (aside: his initials are DP as well!) and it extended his program. He had planned on going back to college to have one more running season and eventually just decided to have URichmond ante up his degrees (B.A. in journ and B.S. in bio) in December. Haha, of all people to whom he felt it necessary to justify his graduation date...ah, I was not the one to need to hear it.
Dan's program at DP was supposed to be in copy editing, but he wound up doing the social media stuff: Facebook, Twitter, moderating user comments on articles...and helping older reporters with e-mail, haha. He's been promoted to a full-time, salaried position.
I look at Dan as Monica 2.0. I edit my brains out; he works for the Post. I run; he does cross country. I'm kinda cute; Dan's ADORABLE. He's younger than I am and better than I am at everything. It makes me feel really insecure sometimes—except when I find errors in articles and get to yell at him to fix them. (He does indeed let me be rough with him that way. Good guy.) I kinda wanna (read: REALLY WANT TO) be Dan.
And so many of my (and our) other friends are off gettin' married, makin' babies, buyin' houses, studyin' for a master's or doctorate... What am I doing? Some exhibits. Some edits. Some mountains. Some ballgames. I love Colorado and don't plan to leave voluntarily, but I wonder why I can't be doing things like everyone else. By this age, my dad was married, had finished law school, and would have a kid in two more years.
What's wrong with me that I'm all by my onesie, took five years to finish school, and don't even own a TV?
For all my questions, sometimes I just need to remember that a lot of those people gettin' married, makin' babies, buyin' houses, etc. would love to be me. I have reasonable rent, not a mortgage. I have a puppy, not a crying child. I don't have to freak if my boyfriend doesn't call when he said he will... Perspective, I suppose.
I hope you can get what you need. I needed to get out. I'm here, and whatever path this is...I just hope I can keep on finding my way.
I sort of feel the need to 'get out' as well. A lot of my friends become very happy marrying, settling, poppin' out babes... but I see your position as somewhere I'd rather be.
You have a solid job, your own place & a lovely canine roommate to share it with. AND you're not in Pennsylvania, you're in a state of real mountains. :)
This is why I see myself going back to school, because I realize no possibility of a job outside of retail or food service with a BFA.
Any way... I do appreciate your colloquy. It can be very easy to idolize another person's career/family/life and not be content with what you're given, and with what you've achieved yourself.
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