I fucking hate being home. I hate being here with people who don't understand me, judge me for the choices I make, and try to get me to conform to their standards of life.
I am young. I will only be young once. So if I want to roadtrip to Canada with some friends, I should do it. Ten years from now, hell, five years from now, I won't be able to. So maybe I realistically can't afford to go to Canada for three days. Boo freakin' hoo. Now is the time to do it.
Other things I can't afford that I'm hoping to do: Semester at Sea and study abroad. Two separate programs that are totally unrelated but that I'll end up doing pretty much back to back. You know what though? For those two programs, there's financial aid. And not a little financial aid, a lot of financial aid. I could do my study abroad almost for free by the time all the aid comes through, depending on how much I get. The Semester at Sea would definitely still not be free, but that one comes with 12 college credits attached. The study abroad through the School for Field Studies would come with about 4 credits, so those two together would be a second minor for me.
A very useful second minor, I might add. It would end up being a Marine Science minor, which is right in line with what I want to do. Because I had an epiphany the other day. Like a literal "aha!" moment, so to speak. I was at my friend's house, and it was really late (read: early in the AM) when our last movie (Big Fish, super good by the way) ended so I went home.
And that is when all the magic started. Because when I got home, I decided that going to bed would just be stupid. I'd had an energy drink around 10, so I wasn't even tired. So I got in the hot tub. And I sat in the hot tub, and eventually I floated on my back a while, and then it just hit me. I'm always calmest, happiest, and overall best when I'm in or around the water. So I should just work in, on, or around the water.
Perfect. And the Semester at Sea and study abroad together, one after the other, would get me a lot of the necessary skills to help me along that path. I would get skills in sailing, seafaring, scuba diving, water-based research, and so forth. I would learn about marine protected areas, several different ecosystems, and more. Those two programs would help me so much, in ways that regular college just couldn't do. And I think employers would like to see that I did some of my schooling in the field. It just makes sense that when some of your schooling occurred in the field, you're more prepared to work in the field.
I also think that I won't use the School for Field Studies as my second internship. I'm going to try to use volunteering at Tiger World as my second internship, just to get some diversity into my resume. I would, ideally, like to do that for the next two years of school. Even if the experience is completely irrelevant to anything else I do later on, it would still be really interesting, and plus, who isn't going to look twice at the resume that has "working with tigers" written on it?!
In the end, it's just money that prevents me from doing any or all of this. It's mainly the Semester at Sea that would be on the fence, cost-wise. The School for Field Studies has so much financial aid that it's likely the only thing I'd have to pay for is the flight, maybe not even that after I get my stipend from college for it. And working at Tiger World would be volunteering, which is that many hours that I can't work for a paying job, plus gas to get there and back.
But this is ridiculous, right? I'm planning all of this, which will happen in the future, to further move my life towards achieving my goals, in the future. I'm not doing any of this for right now, I'm doing it because it'll help me out later on. I mean, all of these things will be great and I think I'll totally enjoy it, but I'm not living for the now. I'm living for the later. I always do that.
Literally for as long as I can remember, I don't do anything for the right now. In high school, I always worked hard and got good grades so that I would get into a good college, in the future. I participated in some extracurriculars to strengthen my resume and applications, in the future. I always wanted to get out, and I did everything I could to further that goal happening, in the future. All the big things that I ever did were done to help my future self out.
I shouldn't worry about the future as much as I do. But how can I not when I'm already almost 10k in debt from one year of school? A school that I'm not even 100% sure I even want to go back to. I just want to up and run again. I don't want to go back anywhere that anybody knows me. I need to start over again, but I just did that a year ago. If I wait two years, I can start over again with the Peace Corps, and then two years later once I'm done with that, I can start over again with grad school. But after that? After that how long do I have to stay in one place? If all goes according to plan (which it almost never does), it could be five to ten years, and who knows if I'll even be able to leave after that long.
Because of money. I already have $9,500 in loans, between my federal and my private. And I'm going to have to take out more for next year, and there's nothing that can be done about any of that. I'm 19. I am way too fucking young to be almost ten thousand dollars in debt. But there's nothing that can be done about it. I don't know. I don't know if I can handle two more years of school. I don't know if I can handle that much more debt. I don't know if I can handle that many more ties to a place. I don't know if I can handle tying myself into an education.
I want to travel. I want to run. I want to leave. I want to be free, and go wherever I want, whenever I want, without telling a soul. But I can't. I'm not free, none of us are. We're all held here, tied in by money and by cultural norms, tied in so tight that we can't ever really leave. It's gotta stop, because I've gotta go. I have to. I can't stay in one place, trapped there by expectations. Our parents', our friends', our own.
I just can't stay. I wasn't born for this life.
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