Where life takes you...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the direction my life is going. I'm definitely in a much different position now than I thought I would be five years ago. 5 years ago, I was a junior in high school. I thought I'd go to college (Syracuse) graduate after four years, meet a guy, get a job writing and editing for Rolling Stone, get married, have some kids, blah blah blah.

I wonder how different my life would be if certain events didn't transpire. If my dad didn't get sick, would I have gone to Syracuse, is that what really stopped me, or was I honestly not ready for a big move? I wonder what it's like for my friends that went on to a university, had the typical college experience (dorms, new friends, etc, graduating "on time") I guess sometimes I regret not going because I haven't had that typical college experience and I haven't done the greatest job focusing on school since I graduated high school. Although I wonder if I would have been just a confused about educational goals if I were there instead. Would I have been more motivated? What's holding me back?

Since I didn't go to Syracuse, I got to date Scott, definitely a positive side to not going. But there was a question on this test we had to take for our pre-marital class. "My partner is the only person with whom I could have a happy marriage." And you're supposed to rank it (Strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree) We've talked about this question and we both wonder if it is possible. What if Scott and I never got together, would we have met other people and had happy marriages? It's a strange thing to consider.

I wonder if I'm "not living up to my potential." When I do graduate with my BA, will I actually work in the field of art history? Will I actually go on to get my Masters? Will I ever be a curator of a major museum? Will I be happy doing that? I hope so.

It feels good to get this out. I don't normally write my thoughts so freely on here, but tonight's different. I guess I just feel I need to be completely honest and up front. I need to stop hiding from my fears and sabatoging myself.

I think I need to start writing again. I wrote something important today and shared it with Scott. I'd forgotten how vulnerable you can feel sharing something, but even better, how great it feels with the person likes what you wrote. It's not too different than taking a beautiful photograph and people complimenting it. Most photographs, everything lined up perfectly and you just captured it to film (or a digital storage.) I guess with writing, words line up in your mind, forming thoughts and ideas and you just have to get them out on paper (or the computer screen.)