Thursday, September 13, 2012

infamy

image via yaya han

So, lately...or rather, for the last couple years...I've been struggling with myself. Things didn't go the way I planned back in high school, back in college. I'm twenty-seven. In high school, I thought that I'd be married, teaching, possibly a mother. In college, I thought I'd be in grad school. I thought I'd be successful.

I'm not.

I'm not where I want to be, and I hate it. A combination of depression and complete lack of self-confidence has kept me here for a long time.

And I'm over it.

So, I realized that a lot of my issues stem from expectations on me that aren't mine. Or, at least, not mine now. I'm going on the expectations of my family, my friends, and my former self, instead of what I feel is right for me now. I grew up in a traditional family, and most of my cousins my age or older are already married, engaged, having kids, and I'm...just not anywhere near that. I feel a lot of pressure to be there. But I know that right now, it's unrealistic. Marriage I could handle. Kids? No. Not even sure I want them, which would likely make most of my family blanch.

I also feel like a lot of my family doesn't care about success. Not in terms of how I define it. I feel like a lot of people around me want me to be happy in a 9-to-5 job that makes enough money for me to support myself and an okay lifestyle, and stay here in my hometown perfectly sated. And then find the obligatory husband and pop out babies.

But I'm starting to realize that that's not going to be enough for me. It makes me feel selfish, but for some reason, the idea of only a few people remembering me when I'm gone bothers me. In a few generations, no one will know my name. No one will care.

Or, that is, that's how it will be if I carry on like this.

Being loved by a few isn't enough for me. I want to be remembered. I want to know that in the future, schoolchildren will open a textbook and my name will be in it. I want to go down in history as someone who changed something.

I don't want to be famous.

I want to be infamous.

1 comment:

  1. "Figuring things out for yourself is practically the only freedom anyone really has nowadays. Use that freedom." -Prof. Rasczak -Starship Troopers

    :P

    ReplyDelete