I sit in a hotel room in Germany, fiddling around on my computer. This has been the theme for the day, it seems. I battled a migraine in the morning, finding some odd form of contentment on silly youtube videos while hiding in the darkness. I should have taken that time to read and prepare some notes I had written for my thesis, but the desire just is not there anymore.
Maybe it is a bout of senioritis that is far overdue, but part of me just does not give a damn anymore. Education, work, relationships all blur into this odd form of consciousness that I just cannot fathom. I jokingly told my friend that I am facing an early quarter-life crisis, but I think I just woke up.
I have always battled what I've come to call my "inner badass," the voice representing all of my pent-up frustrations, repressed desires, and a hell of a lot of spunk. As I come closer to the day I've waited for--graduation day--I realize that I am still fighting these feelings. There is so much that I want to do, and life is full of experiences that come once in a lifetime. Whether it was missing a chance to sneak out with friends in highschool, go to raves, or get black out drunk at a college party, I opted out of risks. Taking them just seemed, well, too risky. When mentioning this to one of my friends, she laughed and told me that I have "higher standards" than those around me. Another told me that while my nostalgia was fine, I needed to come up with new goals; I can't catch up to the previous timeline I set for myself, nor can I rewind and start from a safe spot.
So what do I want to do with my life now?
There is still an intense desire to return to Japan, the place where I learned more about myself than I could ever have imagined. Yet, after coming to like the flight attendant job a bit more, I found myself falling in love with Germany, Ireland, and more surprisingly, California. (How did that happen?) All four are contenders for graduate school, but after all of the (excuse me) shit that I went through with my home university, do I really want to jump into graduate school right after I graduate? No, not really.
I know myself well enough to know that I am not spontaneous enough to up-and-move to another state, much less move to another country. Even if it's for a short while, the financial burden of a move is enough to make me flake. Yet, I don't want to give up the opportunity of seeing the world while I am in my prime I have dedicated the last seven years of my life to school and everything school related, and I think it's time to give myself some much needed "Macy Time."
This means that I am going to start putting myself first. I hope that I'll never be bitchy about it, but I would like to request that those of you reading (especially those of you who know me in person) are patient with me as I explore different realms of my personality. I've always considered myself the "mom" of my group of friends, and at times I felt that I gave more than took in a relationship. Now, that's all well and good when the relationship is balanced on different levels. But I want to encourage my friends--as well as myself--to become more independent.
One thing I am proud of is my ability to see through my goals. One day I sat and counted the things I wanted to do in life. While some had changed over time, my life goals were a follows:
1. Go to Japan (Check)
2. See Hyde in concert (Check)
3. See L'Arc~en~Ciel in concert in Japan (Check)
4. Meet Hyde (Check)
5. Learn one or more languages (Check)
6. Meet Shaun White (Check)
7. Live in Japan (Check)
8. Teach English in Japan (Check)
These aren't in any particular order, but I have pretty much accomplished the things that were important to me. Now I have to ask myself what to do next.
I can't even begin to plan it out. It was so clear to me: Work a a flight attendant until I graduate, then move on. Every senior flight attendant I speak to says that they originally planned to work as a flight attendant through college, and they are telling me this 30 years later! (Yikes!) While the job is great, I know that the first 3 years will be a struggle financially, and I can honestly say that the stress of bouncing around the globe and never being in one place for long puts an enormous strain on me emotionally. I don't know how long I will be here realistically, but ideally, I want to be doing something else within two year's time. And by then, I may want to settle down. Whatever I want to do, I need to do sooner rather than later; I don't want to be complacent about my goals, or else I could get stuck in one place.
While I don't have a clear answer for what I want to do right this moment, I know that I want to be able to have a place of my own within the next year. I'm tired of living out of a suitcase and sleeping on an air mattress. I want to be responsible for a room. I also want to be able to maintain a healthy diet by eating vegetarian or pescatarian diet 5-6 days a week. I want to make more time for exercise, leisure reading, and catch up on Japanese drama and anime.
But right now, I want to get ready for bed. It'll be a long day home in the morning.
