UPROOTED

Today is my 38th birthday. It’s also 25 years since my Bat Mitzvah and 25 years since my dad passed away.

Last year, around this time, I was uprooted and brought here, from a place where I was happy and had a decent job. I was taking step forward and starting to put money away.

I’ve spent much of my 30’s looking back on my 20’s and the things that went wrong.

I pissed away 4 years of time and money at a liberal arts college on a degree that left me useless in the real world.

To counteract that, I became and RN, a practical skillset, which I chose as a reaction against the choice I’d made in college. I wanted to feel useful, wanted, needed.

But that probably wasn’t a good choice of profession. IT was a level of responsibility that was a bit beyond me. I burnt out and broke down.

I look back, way couldn’t I have chosen a different path?

I was lost and didn’t know what to do with myself. I lacked a sense of direction. I was like a nice car with a tank full of gas, but no map, no GPS.

I needed my dad.

I look at other friends of mine who are better off. One friend, a Reference Librarian, knew that she wanted to go into Library Science from the time she was young. She had a straightforward path in front of her. She never considered other careers. She also has a husband and has been with him since college. They were each other’s one and only.

Why? Why does God, or whatever powers at be that are up there running the show, seem to bless some people with straightforward paths, and others, he gives scattered pieces and expects us to put it all together?

Another former classmate of mine, an average student, went to MSMC for accounting, and is now head of finance at the county water department. That sounds like a good job.

Yet another childhood friend, who pretends never to have known me, was also an average student. She is now a successful dietitian.

I envisioned many things for myself when I was young: marriage and motherhood, college and career, ministry and serving God. I had all different priorities. But you can’t have it all. You must pick one path and stick with it.

In some ways, feminism has freed women from the bondage of dependency to men. But in other ways, it has made our lives more complicated. Now, we have the expectation not only for marriage and family, but of building a great career, too. And the desire for children is still there, but there’s a time stamp on that part. So, we spent our most fruitful, fertile years in worry and anxiety that we aren’t doing enough.

I’m learning deeper acceptance of my circumstances. Things make sense now. I can look forward, to whatever is left ahead.