Against the Grain

Hello everyone! Almost an entire month later, here I am! I apologize yet again for my inability to write more consistently as I used to. Unfortunately, my job continues to eat up my energy... among many other things..

Lately, I've been in a bit of a funk. When I first started this blog, I promised myself and the readers of this blog that I wouldn't let it go down that dark, familiar road known as Negativity. I would avoid being pessimistic about Connor's hectic journey, and the affect it would have on our marriage. Luckily, those initial concerns I had really have not taken a toll on us. Of course, there are days when I just want to come home from work and spend all my time with him until bedtime, and we just can't. He has loads of work to do, and I just have to take my hour of dinnertime and be happy! That sometimes gets me a little bummed, but for the most part, I'm pretty used to it by now. Not to mention, seeing him be so successful makes all of the sacrifice worth it. He's completely flourishing in all of his endeavors and that has somehow left me looking into a mirror and questioning: Am I flourishing?

I've been getting really down on myself with my current career choice, and how it has been a bit of a letdown. I have always been a bit (okay A LOT) of an idealist. I always imagined the world full of creative possibilities and magical wonder. I  promised myself I would never cage myself just because societal expectations told me to. I was meant to be who I am and not what others wanted me to be. That motivation to dance to the beat of my own drummer always took me down a more bumpy road, but I never once believed I was making a mistake. I wasn't lying to myself--I was living the most accurate version of the life I wanted. During my college years, I was happy with myself and where I saw myself in ten years. I had lofty, creative endeavors and I would reach them all.

Everyone Almost every person over the age of 30 told me I was unrealistic, and that someday I would have to tame my wild spirit and be more pragmatic. My mother was metaphorically beating her head against the wall trying to get me to realize that I was making my life more difficult than it needed to be. The people of the world value stability. The more stable you are, the more successful you were in the eyes of others. So that day finally came, like clockwork, when I decided all my dreams and all that I wanted for my life was unreachable. All of it would lead me to financial insecurity and frustration. With that realization came the decision to choose pragmatism and security because that's what adults have to do. We cannot afford to be selfish because we don't live our lives for ourselves. We live it for the future--for the house we plan on buying in years to come, for the children who have yet to be born, and for the bank accounts we hope to cushion our comfortable lifestyle.

I am now in the middle of my decision to be what others expected me to be and am now faced with dissatisfaction. (This is the negativity that I foreshadowed just a paragraph earlier, if you couldn't tell.) I feel creatively stunted and pressured to limit myself on an everyday basis. I feel regret for time that I now cannot get back when my options were endless and could have done so many other things. Now, thousands of dollars in debt for an education that has led me, not to my ideal profession, but to functionality traps me in my pragmatic prison. Yes, the bitterness could not be more realistic. I choose "reality" and I am now living it in its realest form.

What does this mean for me? ...because simply wallowing in disappointment gets us nowhere. I shouldn't sit around admiring the walls of the hole I dug myself into. I could blame others, but why? Everything was done by my own volition. Do I rediscover my idealistic roots? Do I get even more realistic, and remind myself that I have a husband in medical school who needs a supportive wife, and not a whimsical fairy living in dreamland? I am still figuring all of this out. Some people decide to live their dreams, and some people decide live for comfort: to stay within the boundaries they created for themselves for fear of instability and failure. What I do know is that in years to come, I don't want to look back at my 25 year old self and think, "What was I thinking? You had all the time in the world to live the life you wanted, and yet you chose stasis out of fear."

Forgetting our childhood imagination appears to be a prerequisite to adulthood. You can't pass go without checking your creativity and all of your captivating idiosyncrasies at the door. Choosing to become the standard is somehow the objective looming over our heads. But that doesn't have to be the norm. For some, practicality was, is, and always will be their driving force. For others, it's not. I know no matter what you choose takes bravery. It takes guts to choose something with everything you have and stick with it. I did that the day I married my best friend and would do it a million times over. Love has been the only thing I've chosen with everything I have.

Now if I could find the equivalent in my professional life, then I will have wholly found Eudaimonia. Glad I could end on an idealistic note. :)

Love,
Mandy