They sit me down and decide that they want to have a serious discussion with me. I'm only going to be living at home for a few more weeks. Then I'm going to be stuck in a car mit sie for a few weeks. It'll be different, but I know from my memory and from journals that I'm the most difficult one to travel with in my family. I'm also the most difficult to live with. I know this, but there isn't much I can do short of sulking, in which case they pester me into confessing what is wrong.
My biggest fault is NOT that I am lazy. It is that I have alot on my mind. For so long I beat myself up thinking I was a slug, a rotten, good-for-nothing slug who was bound for failure because of lack of modivation and effort. Not true. My parents think that it's immaturity. It's not that either. I'm not a naturally organized person. I am naturally chaotic, not to a disgusting state...I like things to be sterilized, but cluttered. And who are my parents to judge me on that, they-who-invented-the-word "Glom"? My parents are every bit as disorganized as I am. And I admit that sometimes things don't get done that they ask me to do...however, when things DO get done, they go unnoticed. I clean the kitchen nearly every day, many days twice. But the kitchen is a place that is constantly being used, and because everyone has different schedules for eating...so the kitchen is never truly clean. If they decide to tell me that the kitchen must be clean at the end of every day before bed, I could understand that...maybe that's what I'll suggest. I also clean the bathrooms before any company comes over. The parents never ever notice this. I vacuumed the other day, and dusted the piano, and folded laundry and mopped the kitchen floor and brushed the dog. All of this went unnoticed. The only things that get noticed are the things left undone. But that's the way life is too, that's the way it is in any workplace or in any school project. Except with my parents it isn't a matter of passing or failing. It is a matter of appeasement, and I DO try to make them happy and proud of me.
I've never defied them, I've never gone out drinking, never played with fireworks or knives, I've never made a serious life-affecting choice that I regretted, I have a higher GPA than either of them did when they were my age. I am going to a much smaller, safer school than either of them went to. I have denied myself of every great rebelliousness to honor them...TV, videogames, pop music, materialisticness. I became a musician because my father is a musician, I remained shy and reserved because my mom is shy and reserved. I don't regret my strong bonds with them.
But this is my life. Not theirs. I shouldn't NEED them. I should love them. I should love them not because I need them but because I love them for raising me and because they are the wonderful people that they are. I shouldn't have come home this summer. It was a mistake, a grave one, because now my relationship with them has gone from "dependant minor" to "independant adult who is mooching off us and being immature about it to boot"
They worry about me, mom says, because I forget to do things around the house. She has told me that I am flaky. I agree. At college, I write everything down. They also think that I'm tremendously immature, or at least it seems that they must think that.
On my maturity. I connect with adults very very well. If Mom or Dad ever saw me in action at either of my jobs, they'd see how well I interact with adults. I had TWO intelligent conversations with customers today, one about Opera, the other about Russia. More often than not, I find myself knowing far more than they do about things. I never try to come off snobbish, and it's very arrogant of me to even have such a thought, but I am quite certain that I read and write more than and am all around better educated than many adults in Luverne. And I generally enjoy the company of those people who are as intelligent or more so than myself. Logan for instance...that kid is WAY more intelligent than I am...I have a year on him, so I keep up, but he knows alot, and if I make an error, he knows. Jessa and Bethany are the same way. Elizabeth is four years younger than I, but FAR better read than I am. In fact, there isn't a single one person whom I consider my friend whose talents or capabilities don't surpass my own. Thus, I hold every single friend in very high regard.
They don't think that I'm necessarily think that I'm immature in that sense, the connect-with-people sense. They think that I'm immature in the "small-town naive girl who knows nothing of the big bad world sense," that I don't know how to manage myself, a career, or money on my own without their guidance. But I haven't asked them for a cent since I left for college. They've given me plenty, and I've accepted all of their gifts with thanks, but not once did I write home saying "send me more money" and I was reluctant (and remain so) to ask for anything at all. They should not have to pay my phone bill, they should not have to pay any sort of loan bill at all...even though they are. I'm not going to give myself an ulcer worrying about my education and how I will pay for it. God will provide, and I am His and His alone. But I won't hold them responsible for "bailing me out" either. I understand why they are so worried about my financial security: they've experienced financial instability and they don't want me to feel that same way ever. They also don't believe in the "good debt, bad debt" philosophy. Good debt is when you take out a loan for a house or a car or an education, bad debt is when you go into credit card debt, debt because of things that prove little worth to you later on. My parents worry that I will choose the wrong thing and be unhappy for the whole of my life. But if I go the way of God how can I be unhappy? My life doesn't belong to them, my life doesn't belong to me, nor to Debt, nor to Happiness. My life doesn't belong to any thing of this earth. It is the things of the next world that I concern myself with, and therefore any debt or surplus is meaningless...something that will be left behind. But I don't think I can say that to them. I think if I said that to them, they'd have me committed...they'd accuse me of using my religeousness as an excuse for being immature about life choices. I think that they're torn themselves. I'm a musician, a dreamer, a poet, a scholar. None of those things make any money. Musicians, dreamers, poets, scholars...those people face lives of poverty (Mozart had a pauper's grave), hunger(Handel lived on the streets for 8 years when he was young), depression(Van Gogh killed himself). My parents are simultaneously impressed and dissappointed that I am this musician/poet/dreamer/scholar. They'd been hoping for someone who would be "successful" as well. They don't expect me to become a millionaire, but they seem to be disappointed that I don't have any monetary goal in mind for the future. They seem to be disappointed that I'm around the house so much. I think they'd hoped that I'd be living with them, but hardly ever around because of my work. I think they'd hoped that I'd be driven by money this summer, not by these dreams and rants and bursts of inspiration because of the wind or the Bible or an opera. Or perhaps they don't think that I'm inspired at all. I could be the most fabulous opera singer in the world, and my Dad would think I was so so. I've studied voice classically for nearly four years now, and he's never once shown any appreciation or even iota of being impressed. I've also composed things, and he doesn't even seem to like my compositions, though I've been told by upperclassmen at Concordia that my knack for it is extremely impressive. But I don't do it for him. He's a silly old man who made many sacrifices for his family, for his career as a means for that family. While that is terribly valient of him, he lost his creative edge. He hasn't composed, unless in secret, since his college days. Reality struck him, he put his musicianship and composership aside and he made a way for himself to have a family. And the fruit of that bounty is that he has one, one that loves him and always will. But that doesn't mean that it's going to be my path too. He expects it to be. They both expect me to fall deeply in love with someone very soon, and then decide that I too will want a family and a normal career and financial stability. But I don't know that. I haven't met anyone, I don't intend to go out looking, I DETEST most college boys and the ones I don't detest are all either gay or taken, and even if I DID find a college boy who wasn't gay or taken and I didn't detest him and I fell in love, well, then of course life will take it's due course and we'll manage somehow. But for me to plan all of that out at the age of 19 is a rediculous thing. They don't expect me to plan that all out at this age of course, but in order to keep my edge musically and intellectually and linguistically and spiritually, I have to close some doors. I don't have time for a computers class, nor do I have much interest in computers right now. I don't have time for a business class because I have no interest in running a business, at least until I'm retired, then I fancy running a little shop that would sell books and bakeries and candies and candles and coffees and soaps and my own knit scarves and all sorts of pleasant, comforting things. I can't keep all my options open. I won't live anyone's dream but my own, and that is to fulfill my calling, which isn't entirely clear to me yet, but at least I'm LISTENING and PRAYING about it, which is more than many people do. So many people follow only their own desires and they often wind up very unhappy.
I'm not unhappy, though I do have the doldrums. I am worried about my parents. I want them to be happy, but I know that regardless of who I was or what I was as long as they can still reach me and influence my life, they will push me to be more than I already am. I only wish that that push was coming from God and not from them. Perhaps God is going through them, perhaps that is it. I hope so. It's so hard to listen to what they have to say because they both can be so inconsistant, and I'm a basketcase half the time too. It's so hard because they are completely and TOTALLY wrong about some things, they are completely and totally RIGHT about some things, they are bad communicators at times, bad listeners at times and I am the same. It causes the situation to be full of ultimate frustration which gets nowhere.
They want to talk with me about something tomorrow, and all I know is that it has to do with my whole life and that it probably has to do with something that they feel is wrong or amiss with my whole life (otherwise they wouldn't want to have a discussion).
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