Growing up, really?

I've always found solace in writing, whether it was journalistic, or for my diary or poems. I write, like I make art, to sort out the jumble of thoughts floating around in my brain. I'm certainly not unique in feeling that way, but I don't write to be unique.

Today, as I near the end of my tenure as editor-in-chief of The Collegian, as I finish up my thesis project, as I near graduation, as I near the real world, I look back towards home and I rely on these words to help me make sense of my decisions.

I just heard back from Teach for America that I have been accepted. Now I'm considering whether or not I want to commit two years of my life to the program. I'm passionate about the cause, I love teaching, and it fulfills my - do something meaningful with your life - job requirement, but I'd also be teaching in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, my hometown.

I love Texas. I love my family. I don't love stress. I don't love that I tend to internalize conflict. I don't love that I tend to be slightly masochistic in my devotion to work. I don't love that I often make things more difficult for myself than they have to be. I don't love that my family situation is difficult. But it is what it is, right?

My mom is one of the most important people in my life, but she is not the easiest to deal with. The stroke has invariably changed what our relationship was and is. A decade ago I was a child. I didn't understand what a stroke was. I didn't know what it would mean to our family. How it would be a catalyst for both positive growth and pain, both physical and emotional. Then I moved out nine years ago to live with my grandparents. I didn't know how that would help our relationships and hinder them. I didn't know then how all these things would define me. Of course I didn't, I was 13 years old.

Now I'm an adult, I guess. Part of her doesn't understand that I'm an adult. Part of me doesn't understand I'm an adult. My mom's brain is missing wires. It doesn't process information the way I process information. If I move home, I worry that she would be hurt if I didn't come over once a week even if I explained to her that I would be working and busy.

The mother-daughter relationship is one that has been explored and explained by more people than I know. Yet it is mine that I explore now. Could I in good conscious take a job in DFW and not go see her? I'm not unfeeling. I love my mother. I want to go see her, but when I step into that house I become in some ways that 13-year-old girl again. I say things I don't mean. I snap. I criticize. And I don't love myself when I do.

Over winter break I spent more time at my parents' house than I have in nine years. At this point in my life I worry what would happen if I went home. I know I need to get to know them as an adult, as the person I am now. But I'm a fixer and there is almost nothing I can fix about the perceived "faults" that I find when I go home.

Then comes, do I really want to teach right now? I know I would do a good job. I know I would probably love it. But do I really want this right now? Can I really do this right now? Am I developmentally ready?

I've always felt like I had to grow up quickly, and I did. But some of the things grown women deal with I dealt with as a 10 year old. Now I'm dealing with things I could have dealt with as a teenager. My development is not a line graph, but a scatter plot. That's perfectly fine, but sometimes I need reminding that what I'm feeling is developmentally normal. I'm normal! What a revolutionary concept!

I guess what I get hung up on is duty. What is my duty to my parents? What is my duty as a human being who wants to change the world in a positive way to do something so positive? What would my duties as a teacher be? But it's also important to remember and muse over what my duty to myself is.

I come from a family of women who give all of themselves to their family, to their friends and to their associations. I come from a line of strong-willed, stubborn and godly women. We take the commandment to serve others before ourselves very seriously, sometimes to our own detriment.

My mother told me over break, "You don't have to do everything and you don't have to take on every job." I told her I learned from the best. She said, "Yeah..."

I talked to my 72-year-old grandmother who said that was one of the hardest lessons for her to learn. She told me of her bio-feedback sessions this past year when the helper told her its good to put others first, but unless you put yourself first, how can you be there for anyone else? Revolutionary.

We've all felt guilty in the past for taking moments for ourselves, for demanding what's good for us, at least I've garnered that from our conversations. It's good to know I'm in good company.

What it comes down to is what's good for me? There are other applicants who could perhaps do a better job. Can I be there for others if I can't be there for myself? Does all this mean I should or shouldn't do it? I don't know.

This thought process, this learning process is all about growing up. I guess I might as well accept that Neverland is pretty far away and living can be an awfully big adventure.

So here's to the future. May it be what it will be. I'll let you know what I decide.

                                                                                                                                                                      

I write candidly here so that if there is someone else out there who understands, or wishes to, that they may know that they are not alone.