I've been thinking a lot about how I have ended up living my life the way I do and the way I actually want to. It feels like it's taken me a long time but I am finally on the right path.
I look back at my life prior to the last 12 months or so and it really felt like I was living a cookie cutter existence.
White, middle-class, private school girl. Friends all white, middle-class, private school girls. Throw in a couple of boys and a couple of friends whose parents come from Asian backgrounds and that's about it in terms of difference.
The cookie cutter also forms not just our circumstances but our paths in life. School, good VCE marks, double-degree at one of the large Melbourne universities, couple of trips overseas here and there, decent job, boyfriend, suburban house, buy a lot of shit for house, dog, wedding, kids, career change, retirement, grand-kids, death.
Of course not all of those things have happened yet and they may not happen in that way, in that order or at all. The expectations are there though and from what I see that path is also a strongly desired goal.
I have been on that path. But it has been a struggle and mostly it hasn't worked out. It has caused a lot of anxiety and distress that I haven't been able to achieve or 'get' these things. Meanwhile the people around me seem to speed through it all not giving it another thought. That has been extremely hard.
I sometimes feel like I was chewed up and spat out of the private school/university machine. I loved my high school and I loved my time at school and I generally look back with great fondness. However, I don't think it gave me enough. It gave me the skills to get a great VCE mark. I was in the top 4% of the state. I got into a great course (double degree of course) but it just wasn't right and I slipped through the cracks.
Certainly my attitude at high school probably didn't help. I was more interested in hanging out with my friends than joining the Amnesty letter writing group. But there were flashed of my passions, I wanted to start a charity at the school for instance, I wrote my Yr 12 oral on equal rights for gay marriage and I went to a couple of protests during my time which a few teachers were aware of. I didn't get a lot of encouragement though. I wish there had been someone (a teacher perhaps) who would have pushed me.
So I have fairly recently come to the realisation that the cookie cutter existence that I know just won't do. It's not enough for me. It's not fulfilling and it's not who I am.
Coming into contact with different people and different existences outside of those that I know has helped. There are other things too. Things like twitter, finding like-minded people and finding a bit of a voice in expressing my own point of view.
So I'm moving forward. I'm going to defy the cookie cutter. I'm going to be whoever I want to be and I'm going to try my darnedest to be happy doing it.
Image via antiquesgaloregal
Love this post, and the courage it must have taken to write it.
ReplyDeleteI'm dealing with this issue, too - figuring out how to distinguish what I want with what I think I want because society/friends/family believe it's right.
I'm reading a book that says we know what we want, it's just that if we're not moving on it, we're stuck in an inner conflict that maybe we don't know exists. Part of us says 'yes I want this!' and then the other part says 'but that's impossible/unreasonable' or a host of other things that we learnt to believe to fit in and survive. (The book is I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What it Was by Barbara Sher.)
Anyway, good luck and know that you're totally not alone.
Thanks so much Hayley.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a struggle and I really identify with the inner conflict. Definitely has taken me a while to realise that it exists and what it actually means.
Thanks for the info about the book I will have to have a look for it.