Disclaimer: Sometimes I write for other people. Other times I write for myself. This post is more for myself, so feel free to skip over it and wait until next time.
In exactly two weeks, I will be on a two hour drive home, leaving my freshman year of college and all the memories of it behind me. While I am looking forward to the short summer months of slightly increased freedom, I am still not sure how I feel about being home again. Yes, I am grateful that I will see my family, and yes, I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and using my own, non-communal shower. Home is where I can sit on the front porch and read all morning. Where I can go out and sit on my roof and play ukulele for no apparent reason. I can finally be in my own kitchen, sitting on top of the counter next to the stove while using that stove to make giant pancakes with different combinations of fruit and sweets in them (apparently there is a lot of sitting in random places while doing random things in my home life). But there is also a part of me that is dreading the idea of being stuck at home for three months. Maybe it seems like college has turned me into some angst-filled young adult who thinks herself too good for her family, but this isn't it.
Whenever I have gone home this semester, it felt like a giant step backwards. It was stepping back into a situation where I was not in control, where I felt inadequate, and where I constantly felt like I should have been doing something to fix that. During the short breaks throughout this year, I bounced between my mom's house and my dad's house, getting glimpses of family members here and there, but mostly I was at home reading or writing or going for walks while my parents were at work and while my siblings were off in their own lives. Now, I am aware that this is a fairly normal situation when you are on break and your family is not. But it makes me feel crippled when I think of my lack of independence, especially in comparison with my sisters. Let me give you some background.
I have four sisters, all of whom are currently living with boyfriends/fiancés/husbands, and three of whom have a child or are about to have a child. I have no boyfriend/fiancé/husband and no child. And I am not the youngest. I am also not using my attendance at a Christian college, where "ring-by-spring" is a very real nightmare, to remedy this. You can imagine what this looks like to certain people in my family, especially those who do not understand my short hair and tendency to dress a bit androgynously. I'm not going to get into this very much or respond to these implications, but I will say they exist and I am still figuring out how to react to them. But getting back to the point, I am the last house-ridden daughter who is not the youngest and who most likely has three more years of college before she has enough money to move-out.
I do understand that this is partially a blessing. It means I have three more years before I have to worry about finding a place to live, buying my own food, paying bills, making rent/mortgage payments, etc. But I have never been comfortable with dependence. The idea of having to rely on someone else makes me feel anxious and sick. I can't really explain where this feeling comes from (though admittedly it probably has something do with being a child of divorced parents and having to deal with all of the family drama that this entails. I'm sure if I was a psychologist I could analyze myself and get all of the answers, but I'm not, nor do plan on becoming one), so I can't articulate it very well and I'm sorry if I sound ungrateful or spoiled.
I know that we all go through stages of dependence and independence in our lives and a lot of the dependent stages are ones we can't help. But I feel like I should be working to end my current, dependent situation. I just have no idea how to go about doing this. I feel like I am mentally and emotionally completely self-reliant, but, due to my lack of financial stability, I simultaneously feel like a child.
It reminds me of when my niece was learning to walk. She was completely determined and wanted more than anything to be able to stand up and walk to the coffee table to get her own juice or toy or whatever was just out of her reach, but she wasn't physically capable of doing so. So she had to cry and point and wait for someone to notice and decide to help her. Complete dependence. Eventually she got past this stage, just as all of us do, and I know I too will get past my baby-stage, but that does not mean I will stop feeling frustrated and deficient while I am in it.
Normally I try to come to some sort of "look at the bright side, you can make this better" conclusion on this blog, but right now I am feeling very lost and anxious and I don't feel capable of giving myself or anyone else who is in my situation advice. So I'm just going to get through these next two weeks of the semester and enjoy them to the best of my ability and hope I can learn how to be at home again.
In exactly two weeks, I will be on a two hour drive home, leaving my freshman year of college and all the memories of it behind me. While I am looking forward to the short summer months of slightly increased freedom, I am still not sure how I feel about being home again. Yes, I am grateful that I will see my family, and yes, I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and using my own, non-communal shower. Home is where I can sit on the front porch and read all morning. Where I can go out and sit on my roof and play ukulele for no apparent reason. I can finally be in my own kitchen, sitting on top of the counter next to the stove while using that stove to make giant pancakes with different combinations of fruit and sweets in them (apparently there is a lot of sitting in random places while doing random things in my home life). But there is also a part of me that is dreading the idea of being stuck at home for three months. Maybe it seems like college has turned me into some angst-filled young adult who thinks herself too good for her family, but this isn't it.
Whenever I have gone home this semester, it felt like a giant step backwards. It was stepping back into a situation where I was not in control, where I felt inadequate, and where I constantly felt like I should have been doing something to fix that. During the short breaks throughout this year, I bounced between my mom's house and my dad's house, getting glimpses of family members here and there, but mostly I was at home reading or writing or going for walks while my parents were at work and while my siblings were off in their own lives. Now, I am aware that this is a fairly normal situation when you are on break and your family is not. But it makes me feel crippled when I think of my lack of independence, especially in comparison with my sisters. Let me give you some background.
I have four sisters, all of whom are currently living with boyfriends/fiancés/husbands, and three of whom have a child or are about to have a child. I have no boyfriend/fiancé/husband and no child. And I am not the youngest. I am also not using my attendance at a Christian college, where "ring-by-spring" is a very real nightmare, to remedy this. You can imagine what this looks like to certain people in my family, especially those who do not understand my short hair and tendency to dress a bit androgynously. I'm not going to get into this very much or respond to these implications, but I will say they exist and I am still figuring out how to react to them. But getting back to the point, I am the last house-ridden daughter who is not the youngest and who most likely has three more years of college before she has enough money to move-out.
I do understand that this is partially a blessing. It means I have three more years before I have to worry about finding a place to live, buying my own food, paying bills, making rent/mortgage payments, etc. But I have never been comfortable with dependence. The idea of having to rely on someone else makes me feel anxious and sick. I can't really explain where this feeling comes from (though admittedly it probably has something do with being a child of divorced parents and having to deal with all of the family drama that this entails. I'm sure if I was a psychologist I could analyze myself and get all of the answers, but I'm not, nor do plan on becoming one), so I can't articulate it very well and I'm sorry if I sound ungrateful or spoiled.
I know that we all go through stages of dependence and independence in our lives and a lot of the dependent stages are ones we can't help. But I feel like I should be working to end my current, dependent situation. I just have no idea how to go about doing this. I feel like I am mentally and emotionally completely self-reliant, but, due to my lack of financial stability, I simultaneously feel like a child.
It reminds me of when my niece was learning to walk. She was completely determined and wanted more than anything to be able to stand up and walk to the coffee table to get her own juice or toy or whatever was just out of her reach, but she wasn't physically capable of doing so. So she had to cry and point and wait for someone to notice and decide to help her. Complete dependence. Eventually she got past this stage, just as all of us do, and I know I too will get past my baby-stage, but that does not mean I will stop feeling frustrated and deficient while I am in it.
Normally I try to come to some sort of "look at the bright side, you can make this better" conclusion on this blog, but right now I am feeling very lost and anxious and I don't feel capable of giving myself or anyone else who is in my situation advice. So I'm just going to get through these next two weeks of the semester and enjoy them to the best of my ability and hope I can learn how to be at home again.