Adulthood, Time, and Direction
One of the first things I thought to myself when I decided to let this blog loose was: okay Talia, what are you going to write about now? What do the people want to hear? After thinking about it for a while, I decided that my first approach would just be to start with telling y’all about something that is going on in my life and let the stream of consciousness flow from there. That is what a personal blog is for, isn’t it?
I had the chilling realization earlier this week that I really am an adult because the highlight of my week was that we were finally able to settle on a compost pick-up service, and I can now send my used tea leaves somewhere other than a landfill. As someone who drinks copious amounts of tea, this is no small victory. At the same time, I doubt that my teenage self would be nearly this excited. Then again, my teenage self was not a vegetarian either. I recently came across a few of my old high school poems, one of which was an ode to bacon.
No, I will not be sharing it.
Another issue I am running up against as an adult is a stunning lack of time. I remember when I was a kid that life seemed like an endless stretch in front of me, and I was weary that high school would never end as a teenager, and yet now things are speeding up so fast I can hardly keep track of them. 2020 felt like the year that would never end, and yet suddenly here we are again in March of 2021, and I am another year older, all ready for my quarter-life crisis.
I know that I am incredibly fortunate to be where I am and have what I do. At the same time, knowing something subjectively, and getting one’s brain to internalize it subjectively are vastly different. So many people are coming out of this year with incredible amounts of trauma, and for those of us who went into it with trauma, the effects are compounded. I realized that I am not the person I thought I was, and that I do not even like that person if I ever knew them at all. I feel as though I spent too much time and not enough time with myself while in isolation.
Currently, I am being pulled in many directions, and being asked to make many decisions. I am unsure what I want to do or where I want to go with any of them. I get distracted at the drop of a hat, and evenings waste away on tasks that I had previously thought would only take minutes. Sometimes what I think that I really need is time to myself, to rest and recharge, but the thing about vacations is that oftentimes when one comes back the work is piled so high that it makes one so stressed, they wonder if the vacation was even worth it after all.
Something I struggle with — something I know a lot of people struggle with — is having more ideas than time to enact them. And picking and choosing is not the easiest thing when all the ideas feel precious and equally salient. Some might call me inconsistent for only going with those that most interest me at a given point, but I think inconsistency has a consistency in and of itself.
The truth is that I do have a certain level of expertise, in a variety of fields, and that is part of what is making it so difficult for me to decide on a path. Throughout my life I have thrived on the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one.” By cultivating different skill sets I have been able to find a certain amount of success, but not a permanent position where I can truly thrive. My current position is as an AmeriCorps VISTA service member, and my term will end at the beginning of August. At this point, my future after that is somewhat uncertain, particularly with the pandemic slowing but not stopping, given the rise of new variants even as we finally have working vaccines.
So, no, I do not know where I am going. But looking back, I never could have predicted a year ago that this is where I would be. Two years ago, I could not have predicted this, could not have predicted last year either. And I can say that going back to every year. All the same, I did sketch out my 5- and 10-year goals when I hit my birthday. I figure 25 is a good milestone to do that. I will not be sharing them with the internet, but my mom thinks that they are solid, and she is stuck with me long enough that her opinion count’s for quite a bit.
Cheers,
Talia
