Celebrating my Future Escape

I'm trying my best to work out some situation for myself. To figure out where to go from here. I feel like each time I get older, more things happen that I cannot control. It surprises me. When I was younger, I always thought you gained control as you gained age and perspective. Now I'm wondering if it's the complete opposite. In letting my parents control my environment, meals, etc, when I was younger, I could focus on things that were smaller but more important to me. I remember how I kept my porcelain dolls organized, and how carefully things were wrapped when they were stored. I even remember a time when I thought I would always live in my bedroom, just the way I had it decorated (from the age of 11, thanks very much). There comes with that a chance to look ahead. Now that was something I didn't do a whole lot of at that age.

Sometimes i wish we could get back the perspective we had as kids. Remember when each day was individual? You didn't worry about tomorrow, you only focused on what was happening today and how you would deal with it. Yesterday may have been regrettable but you would get over it. There are plenty of ways I wish I could go back and change things. Things that i did or didn't do as a little girl and will never have the chance to do again. But for the most part I'm okay with myself the way I turned out. There are a lot of things I could have done differently, but I wonder if they would have left me in New York.

My friends are beginning their grown-up lives. A huge number of them seem to be marrying their college boyfriends and buying houses and embarking on careers I wonder if they'll like five years down the road. But I'm glad I'm doing my own thing, glad I'm taking the time to stop and examine what this life is about before trying to figure out how to escape from it. I may never get to live in Europe or Asia or Africa, but I can try and be happy right where I am. I just finished reading "Grapes of Wrath" (which I started in high school but couldnt' appreciate until now) and realized how what those characters wanted more than anything in the entire world was to stay where they were. Where they had been born an their parents before them. We take our homes for granted. I can't imagine my parents ever letting go of the farm, selling off our horses and moving into a more urban environment. I think it would hurt my feelings!

It doesn't matter how old you are, or how long you've been away from your parents/guardian's world. Home is still home. Most things in my room haven't even changed that much in twelve years. Prom dresses hanging in the closet, pictures of me as a baby sitting on the same dresser I've had since I was about five. There are a lot of things I got rid of when I left home for boarding school, and then for college, but more has remained the same over the years.