Cathartic Writing

28. Wow.

I'm not sure how I got here, but here I am. 28 years old.

Do you remember when you were younger, and you would plan out where you would be in five, ten, fifteen years? Eh, maybe that was just me. Anyhow, I calculated how old I would be when I graduated high school and college...and once I was in college I realized I needed to add some time for a graduate program...so marriage would come after that, then the career, the house and babies!

Ha, yeah....I know...ridiculous. You can't plan your life...some things just need to happen. Regardless, I feel that for the most part, my life is where I originally planned, and where I need to be: I graduated school, graduated law school, and met an absolutely amazing man that is beyond perfect for me.

The areas that haven't quite worked out are mostly financial and career. Some of you may remember that I started this blog because I was unemployed...and it's been a bit of a roller coaster since I graduated law school a couple years ago. And financially....well, I've never been financially stable I guess. I've never been able to go crazy around Christmas time and buy stuff for the whole family, or go on expensive weekend get-aways...or finance my own car. I feel like at 28 I should have improved from when I was 18. But I haven't. I wish I could say with confidence that in a few years I'll be where I want to be, financially, but with my career aspirations of working in a field that [normally] doesn't pay over $50,000, and school loans nearing the $200's, I just can't.

As the first person in my extended family to graduate from undergrad and law school, I think my family's expectations of what I would do with my life were high. I know they're looking out for me when they want me to land some lucrative job, but I think they've finally realized that's not what I want for myself, and seeing that reaction is difficult.

My aunts and my grandmother were having a conversation a few weeks ago about how life for my cousins and I has been so much easier than theirs, and they don't understand how we don't have our life together at this point. I've been a bit of an emotional wreck about this on my own, so being me, I clammed up and just tried to hide how much their commentaries bothered me. I know the challenges my cousins and I face can't be compared to what my grandmother and my aunts had to do to get ahead in life, but I don't feel like I'm where I am because I took the "get out of jail free" card either. I wish I had it in me to be more hungry for money, to want money bad enough that I didn't care what I did with my career, as long as I was bringing in the cash. I wish I was a fighter. I wish so many things, but I'm not. So I'm trying to work with the cards that I've been dealt, and as far as I can tell, I'm doing the best I can. I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do.

The other day my mom mentioned that Jeff and I should be saving money, and I almost lost it. Jeff and I aren't not saving because we don't want to...we've actually tried...but eating or paying bills seems to take precedence every time. Everyone has an opinion about what I should do with my life and in what direction I should take my career, but honestly, none of them sound appealing. I wish they did. I don't know how to reach the financial stability I want. And I don't know how to do what I want, and not feel like I'm compromising my financial stability.

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I hope you reading this was as cathartic an experience as me writing it :)