Take Five: Choosing Between Fulfillment and Living = 06-08-2025

This thought has been on my mind for a while, honestly. Weeks and months have been spent thinking about what I’m going to do and get on with in my future. For something that should be exciting to think of and fun to plan out feels like such a burden on me, it stresses me out and worries me more than anything. And it’s gotten to a point where I just want to drown like Ophelia and let the river take me.

I don’t know where to go from where I am right now. I always had the idea that I’d figure out the rest of my life during my senior year of high school, but (unsurprisingly) I didn’t. I feel so lost now. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think I would make it this far in my life. I always thought something would happen to me, but it never did. So what now? My biggest issue right now is that of college. And a job. And learning to drive. I feel so unprepared for this part of my life, and maybe that’s just my nerves and lack of a spine and voice for myself to push on through this period. But this feeling just seems so permanent, it feels like it’s ever going to leave.

For the longest time, I wanted to be a park ranger. It was such a big dream for me, I was willing to commit myself to major in something I had no interest in if it meant I had a greater chance at joining the National Park Service and living the rest of my life in the woods and in nature. But with everything going on in the world, and a bit more personally, in my own life, it feels like a stupid fantasy that was dumb to even fathom from the start. I feel like an idiot for thinking that was a possibility for my future, for thinking nothing could ever happen to this idea of mine that would end up with it being unachievable. Yeah, I talk about it with my family, and I understand when they say it’s not completely dead, that it will always be possible and maybe even always available to me. But from where I stand, it feels so insanely impossible and out of this reality to even think about reaching for. Y’know, something funny about this; almost the same week I decided I was really, really, going to dedicate myself to studying environmental science, the National Park Service laid off and fired hundreds of workers, and got its budget cut. It really crushed me, knowing that something I saw as the perfect part of my future, as a beautiful and untouchable fantasy, just can’t be a part of my future without me risking it.

I felt like this was supposed to save me. It was supposed to take me away from the mediocrity and boredom of my life up until now, and give me everything I have ever wanted and more. But it can’t at least not without me risking it greatly with throwing myself into this for the rest of my life. I had similar issues with other things I wanted to study for college. I wanted to be an artist, until I realized I am extremely mediocre at art. I wanted to be a filmmaker, but this was even more unreachable. I don’t have a lot of money, not myself or my family in general. I can’t just dip into a college or trust fund and go on to study whatever my heart desires. I’m poor and whatever I spend the next years of my life on will determine the rest of my existence. If there’s anything that I’ve given up that has crushed me as much as the dream of being a park ranger, it’s giving up becoming a filmmaker. I love movies, I love the work that goes into creating one, and simply the idea of being able to make something is what I wanted for so long, but the reality of it just crushes it all. I can’t make a living off of films, I can’t afford a good apartment or a week's worth of groceries by filming, directing, and editing my own short films. It’s not possible for me. To be honest, I envied my ex for this. I envied how easy he had it, how he didn’t have to worry about not having money to go out and make his own short films because he didn’t have to, because he was being cushioned by his generational wealth. He’d always have money in his wallet, always have time to film, and always have friends who would help him. I didn’t have that. He had everything I wished and still do wish I could have, whoever said money can’t buy happiness was clearly swimming in it. Maybe I’m shallow for my jealousy. It’s not anyone’s fault I was born into a family that can’t just give me a few hundred bucks like his did just to go out shopping with friends. But in the end, it really is just money that stops me from doing so much. Lack of money stops me from going to film school and fully committing my life to it. Lack of money stops me from becoming a park ranger without fear of being laid off and alone. And a lack of money doesn’t just hold my future hostage, but my present too.

Maybe that’s also just me. Maybe it’s my environment that has stopped me from experiencing my teenage years to its fullest. I spent almost all of high school with one friend, and once I had friends, I got kicked out and forced back into the worst parts of myself and my life. I never did anything I should have been doing as a teenager. I didn’t cut class or ditch, I never snuck out or went to parties or dances besides homecoming one year and a swing concert with a friend on the Queen Mary last year. I was and still am very boring. And I feel as though I am a wasted life. I disappoint myself so much with this. And maybe this is my own fault. Maybe it’s just life playing a big joke on me. This year I went from living in an area that had everything I loved and cherished for almost my entire life, to a completely new and alien place that feels like a desert. There’s nothing for me here except for college. All I can do is sit in the garage and watch the cats walk by, go to the grocery store for my momma, and write in my room.

I feel as though I could do so much more. I feel like there is so much more for me to see and do and experience, but so many things stop me. I still draw, I write, I read. I embroider and do so many other things, but something keeps me from enjoying all of this to its fullest. Maybe it’s me. Something could really just be wrong with me, I just don’t know. Everything I want is just out of reach, it feels impossible to even get a grasp on anything. I miss my old comic book store, I miss my old military surplus warehouse, I miss my old favorite bakery and cafe. I miss so much, it feels unfair and I feel selfish.

I also feel as though I’ve strayed from my original “point”. However much I have cried and complained about this, it is not to say I don’t have things in my life currently that I don’t love and adore. I love the cats in my new neighborhood, the diner down the main street, and the people I love in my life right now. There is good. I don’t regret what way my life is going. I simply feel stuck, and I don’t know where to go from where I am right now. All I can do is continue hoping it will come to me eventually.