The longer I’m alive, the more I witness myself taking different paths than my friends and peers. Almost always, I take the left when they take the right. Go to a four-year uni after high school? I think I’ll take some gap years instead. Stick with real estate until COVID calms down and take advantage of the booming market? Nah, I’m going to quit before I strike gold. Now is the time for a degree. Party, travel and practice your Spanish every day during your study abroad? Ehh, I’m just going to do my homework and watch movies with my roommates. Stick with the job that gave you a $10,000 raise within 6 months? No, I’m going to quit that and try and work freelance on the road.
It sounds like my life is full of foolish decisions. They are bold, vain, and often not well thought out. I make rash choices, and this I know. I’m very quick to lean into what feels good and run away from what feels bad. I can’t justify living my life doing something I don’t LOVE. But at what cost? How long can I run away from pin pricks and thistles. Those are everywhere. So what am I looking for and why isn’t it the same as everyone else?
First, nobodys path is the same as another person, however, many routes are taken that look awfully similar to others. Go to high school, go to college, get a good job, save your money, date, get married, have kids, a house, etc. It’s cute and it’s certainly within the American Dream realm. However, it is not for me. This expectation to do what’s safe and known makes me gag. What is life if not risk and excitement. At the ends of your days, you will find yourself in the hall of memories, and only then will you realize the walls are beige, the doors are white, and the floor is spotless. This is the world you lived in. So organized and clean that the lemon scented cleaning detergent burns your nostrils. I bet you didn’t know you were allowed to track mud in there. You were allowed to get paint on the door knobs. That’s fine you kept it in the lines, but that will not be for me.
My left turns make sense to me. I take them when I don’t believe the popular status quo is meant for me. After high school, I truly wasn’t ready to get a degree in something I wasn’t passionate about. I wasn’t set on my school either (ironic considering I eventually reenrolled). I didn’t love selling my life to real estate, however it was a bit foolish to quit right before the market sky rocketed. I was safe abroad, and I got much better at Spanish. Would I do it differently? Yes, but I’m still pretty happy with how it went. Did I like my events job before I quit it? Parts of it, but no, I didn’t, and I wasn’t going to bend over and get f*&%ed for another year just because it was expected of me.
Now, I sit penniless, jobless, living with my ‘rents again, wondering about all those left turns I made. Were they the right choice (no they were the left choice, haha)? What did I learn from them? What did I gain from them? What does my trajectory look like now that I’m going down this road? These, amongst others, are some open ended questions that I struggle to find answers for.
At the very least, I find solace in Robert Frost’s poem about just taking a path. When you hit the fork, take it, and your life will be all the better for having made a choice. All steps forward!
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