music: none. amazing!!
Well I decided not to attend college this fall. The amazing thing is, this decision has made me really understand how people view me, by their reactions alone.
For starters, my parents. They are behind me one hundred percent. "Break?" They say. "Breaks are excellent. We both took them soon after we started college. You have done so much already you need to have fun. We are proud of you for doing what you want to do." I was a little surprised to hear this, but I suppose I knew they'd support me, they always do. Plus, it saves them a lot of money and I highly doubt they'd object very strongly to any situation that does.
My grandfather was a little surprised, but once he heard the reasoning he supported it. He said, "It took me 25 years to finish my Bachelors, and I am very well off now. Everyone does it at their own pace. And I expect you'll probably go back and finish so I'm not worried."
My grandmother... I think she dropped the phone. It was silent forever. She totally freaked. "You're NEVER going to go back!! I just know it!! You're practically homeless already!!! What if I send you ALL of the money? Then will you not take a break? PLEASE DON'T LET ME DOWN; YOU ARE MY LAST HOPE IN THE WORLD..." Okay perhaps not that dramatic but it was very close.
Well, the thing I have learned about myself is that I value very different things than most people. I think perhaps in some situations, no one ever figured out exactly how to decide whether or not they valued someone so they stuck it all on status. Your degree is in? Engineering? Oh how lovely, come over for sandwiches and vodka! I'll send the limo for you on Tuesday. Wait, you say your major is English? What do you expect to do with that? Really now, can't you major in something real?
You went to what school? La-dee-da.
You got your degree how fast? Well just wait til I call up my Robert, he's simply got to hear this!!
What is wrong with my life dream? I just want to roam. I want to see everything. I want to work in a multitude of random jobs in a multitude of random countries, and never know where I'm going to be next month, or with whom I will fall in love or hate or run away from. I want to have children someday and take them on the road with me, show them everything amazing and magical about the world and teach them to love themselves and what they can do, because children today don't learn that. They learn to slide money under the table when things don't go their way, and they learn that dinner is spelled M-C-D-O-N-A-L-D-S. In the car, no less. I've spent enough of my life enduring this kind of non-living, and I want to go see the real stuff. I want to see people playing guitars on the sidewalk for spare change, I want to see the Grand Canyon and Niagra Falls and the eskimos of northern Canada. I want to ride a boat in the Amazon River and speak Italian to the little lady that runs the bed & breakfast in Venice. I want to see the sheep on the hillsides of Scotland and I want to explore the Outback of Australia. THAT is what I want to do with my life, and do you know what I am told, by everyone?
Yes, but what do you really want to do -- you know, after you've had your fun?
But now that I am grown, I understand that I can't listen to them. The only reason they talk like that is because they listened to the doubters when they were young and are too afraid to see in me what they could have been.
So then, here's to adventure...