A bit of background: I've been frustrated about things for the past...oh I don't know...since high school. I have a very specific role in this family...one that I have a hard time getting away from. I had a semi-reprieve from most of it when I went away to school at USC, but thinking back I never really separated myself from it...I just continue to carry it around with me where ever I go. When I graduated school in 2002, I moved back home and right back into that same old familiarity of it all.
Which brings me to the following blog post. On Friday I was at work, struggling to control the worst case work scenarios that keep wanting to replay in my head (a whole other story that I might get into sometime...), when I received a phone call:
Me: Hello?
Dad: This is Dad.
Me: Hi Dad.
Dad: Can you ask Mom if we are going to bible study tonight?
Me: uh. Okay. Did you call her?
Dad: Yes. She's not answering. Can you just ask her when you go there for lunch?
Me: I don't know if I'm going there for lunch.
Dad: Just ask her when you go.
Me: ...but I don't know if I'm going...
Dad: Just ask her if we are going to bible study today when you go. Thanks.
Now. It doesn't seem like it's a big deal, right? It really isn't and it really shouldn't be...but that conversation is pretty indicative of my life as a human telephone. First of all, my mom is very bad with "the cellphone". Secondly, I don't live with my parents. I have my own half of a house 5-6 miles south of them. Thirdly, they always assume I will be there, always, forever, doing things for them.
Out of frustration I started writing this on my Blackberry while at work:
I'm tired of this life....if you can call it a life. I tired of doing what is expected of me. I'm tired of being the "responsible" one and the "dependable" one, mostly because it really means I'm the "single and not doing anything of real importance so she can drop everything and cater to the needs of others" one. I'm tired of feeling like I don't have a voice, I don't have an opinion, I don't have a choice. I'm tired of the guilt that comes along whenever I say no or disagree with someone else. I'm tired of feeling trapped and tied down by obligation, responsibility, expectation, circumstance, and predictability. I'm tired of being defined by it. I'm tired of the thought that if I didn't have this role in life, then I wouldn't know what to do with myself, I wouldn't know how to describe myself, I wouldn't know how to be me. I'm tired of wanting a different life. I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of worrying. I'm tired of playing it safe. I'm tired of mindless following. I'm tired of wanting out, whining about it, and then not doing anything about it.
So what am I going to do about it? I keep waiting for something to happen...for that big external life changing force to come along and turn my world upside down. I know now that that force has to come FROM me, and I can't be waiting for it to happen. I have to make it happen for myself.
Here is me, trying to make it happen. I know I say it a lot...but this time I mean it...I think...