A few nights ago, Elena and I decided via text message conversation that we were finally going to take the plunge and write our first posts for this new blogging endeavor. The topic? Life. Where we are now. Why we aren't where we thought we would be. How we hope to change that. Big stuff.
Over the past couple of days, I have been toying with how I wanted to begin this post. This particular topic of "creating my life" is something that I obsess over. I know that I have plenty to say, but I'm still afraid of not sharing it in the way that I feel it begs to be shared. So, I have decided to start out by saying this:
My life as it is now is beautiful. But...it's still not what I want.
It's kind of difficult for me to share that thought, because I know a lot of people are going to read it and immediately think that I am ungrateful or spoiled. However, I'm to a point where I don't really mind if that is what people want to think...because it simply isn't true. Actually, I'm sure that some of you feel the same way, and you're just too afraid to be honest with yourself and admit it.
I feel it's necessary to tell you a little bit about my background. Throughout my entire life, I have felt "out of place." I grew up in an extremely small, country town where opportunities were few and far between and success was generally defined by what your last name was. Growing up, I always joked that I was "born in the wrong place." But...there was always a large element of truth hidden within that joke.
In a small town, everything revolves around Friday night football games, parties in the middle of the woods, who wears the most awesome $90 jeans on the first day of school...blah, blah, blah. Being intelligent, unique, and creative is not something that is appreciated. In fact...a lot of times, being any of those things buys you a first class ticket to the classification of "stupid." How messed up is that?
There is one giant thing that I credit to being raised in small town America though...it allowed me to become a dreamer. I took of all of my hopes, and fears, and goals and bottled them up in my introverted mind. I figured...since big things were not happening for me then, I would just have to make even bigger things happen for me in the future. Traveling the world, publishing books, taking pictures, watching every musical or theatrical performance that my eyes could handle...it was all going to happen.
And so began my path to further self-discovery. I graduated high school with honors, obtained my AA degree at a community college not too far from my hometown, and then I moved off to Tallahassee, Florida to finish my schooling at Florida State University. College is something that I loved and hated at the same time.
I loved it because it showed me so much of what I had missed growing up in a small town...diversity and the beauty of different thoughts and points of view. I met phenomenal people and had the privilege to learn from fantastic professors. I learned that being a creative thinker is not something that should make you feel out of place, but instead something that can be used to change the world.
On the downside though...it kept me incredibly confused in terms of what I actually wanted to do in life. I changed my major multiple times, and by the end of the experience, I had myself convinced that I wanted to pursue a more "traditional" career path. I told myself that I had to be logical, and writing and travelling the world for a living just wasn't logical. Therefore, I graduated with a degree in Social Science, and I'm now living out my career dreams.
Just kidding. But more on that later.
- Miranda
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