Different.

D - So for the last few months I’ve been feeling this sort of hanging, guillotine-like stress of the big question. Or as far as I was concerned, the big question. “What am I doing with my life?” But the question wasn’t so much to answer it, but to question what I had done and what I planned to do and how they fit into what I felt other people were expecting of me. I have felt, for the last few months as though everybody expected something of me, and will continue to expect things of me as I grow older and that I haven’t been fulfilling them. I mean, my character, whilst entertaining and fun and cool (I honestly think), it really isn’t very dedicated, committed, strong-willed or determined to do anything. I’m not very smart, I’m creative. I’m not hard-working, I’m laid-back. I’m not serious, I’m light-hearted. These things I am, I don’t think fit into any mould my parents (because it’s mostly them I feel this from) expect me to. Anyways, I’m rambling. I really was stressed out about this. Like, “Where am I going to be in ten years?” “What kind of shitty financial situation am I in?” “Why am I in the theatre program?” “Why am I not working right now?” These were the questions I’ve been asking myself for a long time. These were making me so upset, inside. I couldn’t deal with them.

V - But I figured it out. It’s not about answering these questions. It’s about me. This is my life. MY life. Not theirs. They can expect all they want, but they’ll be disappointed. I am my own person, and even though what they want of me isn’t necessarily anything bad, per se, a lot of it doesn’t fit with *me*. I will make my life decisions. I will do what I want to do. If I want to live in a trailer for a while, I will. If I decide to disappear to Alberta for a couple years or whatever, then so be it. I don’t need to live my life in the confines of traditional plans. I can do what I want, when I want. And fuck what anybody expects of me. It doesn’t mean I won’t be rational. It doesn’t mean I’m undependable. It simply means that when it comes to bigger decision in my life, I’m not going to be swayed so easily and pressured by the ideals that my parents and society in general has established in my life. I’m going to instead choose to do what I think will make me happy. And if it doesn’t, then I’ll try something else.

8 - The one question, the only question that I should be asking myself whilst parading through my life is, quite simply “Am I happy?”

ps. Kind of ironic and awesome that such a discovery would be on my twentieth birthday.