Strict

I'm pretty sure that when it comes to the ideal child, I hit it pretty close.

I know how vain that sounds, I get it. But I'm starting to think there's a great deal of evidence for it. When my parents made rules, I obeyed them, no matter how much my friends insisted it was unfair or wrong. There may have been times when I was tempted to rebel, in simple, tiny ways, but I never did. I was always too afraid.

Hearing the stories of other kids who grew up with strict parents is always interesting. Most of them are online, a few are real life, and all of them make me think that my parents weren't nearly that bad. I was allowed to have friends over if I wanted. When I got a car (and hey,  I got a car), I was allowed to go places as long as I told my parents where I'd be going, who would be there, and when I'd be back, and gave them the address of where it was. Which I guess seems reasonable. I know they were just worried. It wasn't like they never allowed me to go out. Freckles and I got bothered about practicing piano a bunch, but we were never forced to practice, though my mom tried several reward techniques. After a certain age, we were allowed to monitor our own junk food intake- not that there was much in the house to begin with. We were allowed to have friends over and sleepovers and eventually, to walk to the corner store alone. When I became a teenager, my mom finally let me ride my bike further than just up and down the street in front of the house. When I graduated, my mom let me go to a grad party at the last minute, despite the fact that a month earlier she and my dad had barely let me out for a different one. I got a cell phone in high school. I had a very decent allowance. We were allowed to hang out at the mall unsupervised with friends. As I got older, they got much more lenient.

But then I think about how I'm so scared of life now. Being here, being away from home, has helped so much; I'm not afraid to get on the bus for an hour to go get my skates sharpened (that was a bad choice of location on my part). I'm not afraid to just walk down my own street and window shop. I'm not afraid to be out when I please. But I'm still afraid. More so of big adult things, like getting a credit card on my own, or spending large amounts of money, or making my own travel plans, but still.

I'm not really sure if that comes from me or my parents. On the one hand, big adult things are scary for a lot of people, even those who had really lenient parents. Some people just don't like to go out and explore much, that's just how they are. On the other hand, I do know people who just... for them, trying new things or giving themselves permission to do something they love or even just find something they love- it's easier for them. I can tell.

I just wonder- because there were so many things I wasn't allowed to do because my parents were concerned, am I forever destined to be the annoying person who worries about everything? "Let's go out drinking! Swegan, do you want to come?" Sure, but I don't want to drink, and how are you guys getting home? Does anyone need a ride? Okay, but no puking in my car. Where is this place? Are you sure that part of town is safe? "Just order something new, like I'm ordering this drink and I've never had it before." Yeah, but what if I hate it? Then I've spent money on something I don't even like. And it's wasted on me. It just goes down the drain, or in the trash. "In order to participate in this, you're gonna need to have [things I do not currently own]." Okay, but I don't really know if I like this yet. Am I sure I want to buy all this stuff? What if I hate it? Then I've wasted a bunch of money and now I have crap I don't need and will never use taking up space. "So just sell it online." How? Don't you have to make an account somewhere? How do I meet up with people? How do I decide on a price? What if they're creepy? It's better just to not bother, then I don't have to worry at all. "Just get a credit card." Okay, but I look really young and naive. How am I supposed to know if the bank is pulling a fast one over me? How do I know if I'm getting a shitty deal that will end up costing me money? And how do I pay that off? Isn't it time consuming? I'd have to go to the bank... I'll just do it later. "Skating hours are Sunday from 3-4:45." Okay, but those hours are prime homework time for me. I really want to skate, but... school's gotta come first. I'll see how it looks next Sunday... ooh, but wait, I won't be here. Well, maybe the Sunday after? (Then I consequently forget). "Come hang out." But I have all this stuff I want to get done so I'm not up working until 11. I need to get enough sleep. If I don't, I get dizzy and grumpy and it's no fun at all. Plus I want to make sure I study adequately for this exam. I have to get these things done. I have to get SOMETHING done, I haven't done anything all day.

Do you see what I mean? I never let myself do anything. And it sounds a bit like my worries are overwhelming the way I've phrased it, but they're really not. This is just how I think. This is how I operate. Unless I can completely justify doing something 100%, unless I'm completely (or reasonably) sure it's a good idea, unless I'm totally convinced there's really no chance of it messing my life up or ME messing my life up, I just won't do it. And sometimes it doesn't really matter, like when I order my favourite thing at a restaurant all the time, but other times it does, like when I can't get a credit card and thus still haven't built up any credit at all.

Sometimes I think it helps to think of all the things I just do now that my parents are none the wiser about. They don't know my study habits, or my eating habits. They don't know that sometimes I leave my building at 10:30 and walk down the dark alley to Safeway. They don't know that sometimes I go for walks in the river valley and get lost. They don't know that I rode the bus into the north end of town for an hour, maybe into a questionable area, just to get my skates sharpened. They... well, okay, they know I took the bus home from the airport instead of just calling a cab. I just... I know these are stupid, tiny little things. I do. But to be able to live my life, at least in part, like it's really mine, like I get to decide how I spend my time, is incredibly freeing. Which is what makes me think my upbringing was "strict" in any way at all.

I know I'm still a stick in the mud, despite the fact that I know people don't hate me. People like me, but they also find me amusing. I worry about everything. Constantly. I can't stop it. I don't really want to. I didn't spend my teenage years running about, doing what I wanted to. I spent a lot of them at home, in my room, doing homework (there's the other thing- I was and remain a very boringly good student. In science, no less).

This may explain why I found it so wonderful when I was finally allowed to drive myself to school, even though I was still late. For some reason, being late when it was my fault didn't give me nearly as much anxiety as when I was late and exactly who was at fault was less clear. Because driving myself to school allowed me, in some small way, to control my own life. Not to mention I got home a hell of a lot earlier, and my parents didn't have to deal with having to come pick me up.

I'm still not good at this. I think maybe it's just that a lot of other people I know had to grow up much sooner than I did. I was given the luxury of remaining a child when I was still a child. Now I have to grow up, and when it seems like everyone around me is just unafraid to do simple things because they want to do them, I feel very, very lame. Sometimes it feels like I'll never catch up, like I'll forever be a step behind my friends as we progress into our adult lives. Sometimes I wonder if I'm only so intensely self-aware of this because I'm growing up now, rather than at 11 or 13 or 16.

The other thing that I know to be true is that one day I won't have my parents to lean upon. I won't have them around to tell me what to do, even when I want them to tell me. I've gotta have my shit figured out by then if I have any hope of coping.

As for my parents being strict... the issue is best summarized by explaining the facebook rule: I wasn't allowed to make an account until they said so. This is a weird rule; it's pretty hard to enforce (and was considering neither of my parents were on facebook at the time) or police, and yet I never even thought about going against it. And I didn't. Perhaps this says something about my parents' ability to trust me (and I am glad now that I wasn't permitted access to something that permanent when I was 13, oh my god), but I also think it says a lot about me. Or the time my parents forced me to write all my grade 10 exams, even though I was exempt due to my grades (they argued that there weren't going to be exemptions later and I should learn how to study now). Everyone (including my teachers) thought that was insanely unfair, and asked why I didn't just... not do it. And I could have, too; my mom never followed me into the school when she dropped me off. I could have just sat in the hallways or a bathroom for a long enough time that it would make it seem like I had finished the test, and called them to pick me up, and lied through my teeth. "How was the exam?" "Fine." But no, I went and wrote them all anyway.

Long story short: I don't have an ounce of rebellion in me, at least not when it comes to my parents, and I still don't know if that's because of me or them.

yer pal,
swegan

"You're too young to be have physically intimate relationships"

Well excUuUuUuUuUuUuUuse me! I might be young, but the law still says that I'm legally an adult. You know what that means? I get to decide what happens to me. If I want to totally abstain from everything and not even kiss people until I'm married, that's up to me. If I want to have lots of casual sex, that's up to me. If I want to be physically intimate with one person at a time, that's up to me. Your only concern should be about the spread of STDs and my risk of pregnancy, which I'm already concerned about.

I don't think my parents get that they actually raised me to be smart. I know, I know, I get that there are risks involved with this. But I'm also educated on how to mitigate those risks. I know that I should always have sex with a condom, yadda yadda. It just gets exhausting when my parents keep insisting that "everything should still be covered at this point." *awkward cough* um. Sure. Okay. As if your opinion has any bearing on this at all.

Although I have to admit there were two surprises that I found when I started to become physically intimate with my current boyfriend: 1) it increased my confidence like 500%, and 2) intimacy is a spectrum. Allow me to elaborate:

1) confidence-- well, obviously this was a big jump for me as I've never really done much of anything with anyone in terms of intimacy. But once stuff actually started happening, I actually found that it was really... empowering, in a way. I knew what I was doing and I knew I had control over how much of it could be done and when (the importance of consent, people), and I liked it. It was fun. Plus, having someone appreciate your body is kinda nice, just sayin'. The combination of feeling like I had control over what happened to my body and that somebody thought my body was really fucking attractive was awesome. Could I have gained this confidence other ways? Definitely. But I gained it this way, and I'm proud of it.

2) the spectrum-- this one mostly comes from tv and movies and other media involving teenagers in physical relationships. Most of the time what I see is that their relationships involve "typical stuff"- kissing, hand holding, makeout sessions where the guy tries to go farther and the girl always stops him (seriously, that stuff is getting old- altho there were occasional gender-role-reversals in there, not gonna lie), but nothing more. Those relationships would then either stay that way, or jump straight into full on penetrative sex. This is what I thought real relationships were like.
The problem with this model is that it completely negates the whole realm of other stuff you can do with someone without risking pregnancy and still having fun. That was I think the best part about this whole experience for me, was discovering "OH THERE ARE OTHER THINGS!" I mean, if you just want to stick to making out and leaving your clothes on, go right ahead. But believe me, there's more than just plain old heterosexual sex beyond that. I don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner, but it has now.

I apologize if this post was a little bit, er... explicit. Although I suppose it's not like I'm going into any great detail or anything. For the record, about 88% of what Ptarckas and I do is just straight snuggling. I'm not even kidding. Which is fucking awesome, because snuggles are the shit and I would say anyone who says otherwise is lying but I get that there are people who don't like snuggling or stuff like that, and that is just fine.

I suppose I learned one more thing, though: there are people out there who want what you want. Or, at least, will negotiate with you. I sort of went off to university believing that boys didn't like snuggling, or hand holding, or mushy stuff, and that nobody would want to be in a relationship with me because I was pretty uninterested in having sex (and I still am- the pregnancy risk is too high for me), and that my unshaved legs and strong interest in feminism would deter potential boyfriends. While I may have found someone my parents don't entirely approve of, he has proven all of those things to be false (at least in his case)-- at one point when I was telling him about my mother's many warnings to me that boys wouldn't want to date me because of my hairy legs, he grabbed my shins, pulled them into his lab, and just started casually... augh, what's the word... stroking them? And also proceeded to say "there is nothing wrong with your legs" which just made me all mushy. How could I not love someone like that? Seriously.

Anyway, I just find it stupid that my parents think I'm too young and immature to make good decisions, which I probably am some of the time b/c I don't know anything, but in other respects I think I know what I'm doing. I might fuck up a little along the way, but the point is that I'm still proceeding with caution, and only with people who understand consent and make me feel respected, safe, and happy. (this of course comes with the mandate that I also respect them and make them feel safe and happy- if someone says they don't want to do something, or are not in the mood, the other person has to respect that. This is not optional).

yer pal,
swegan

p.s. sorry if I seriously weirded out any of my friends that read this. ILU GUISE. FOR SERIOUS.

SO MUCH FUN BEING HOME U GUISE

I JUST LOVE FORCED SOCIAL FAMILY GATHERINGS PLACED ON ADJACENT WEEKENDS SO THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO TIME TO RECOVER AND REST IN BETWEEN. IT'S NOT LIKE WORK CAN SOMETIMES BE EXHAUSTING OR ANYTHING WHAT WITH THOSE TWO EXCHANGE STUDENTS FROM BRAZIL WHO WON'T EVEN TALK TO ME OR WORK IN THE SAME AREA AS ME IF THEY DON'T HAVE TO, NOT TO MENTION HOW I HAVE FUCKED UP A GREAT DEAL OF THINGS THERE AND IT'S EXHAUSTING TO BE CONTINUOUSLY FUCKING UP.

I don't think I'm an introvert in the sense that I need to recharge my social energy frequently. I enjoy being out with friends on short notice and I do need people around in general, or else I get very lonely. The issue comes when I have to be around people I don't know very well, especially when it isn't my choice. But I can't say "no i don't want to go visit family this weekend because I need some time to be alone" because it just comes out as "I don't want to see my family because I am a gigantic douchenugget."

Not to mention that my parents just LOOOOVE having company out at the cabin (god, this is such an upper-middle-class problem, I know). The only problem with them having company is that their company always has kids, and Freckles and I, being The Kids of our own respective family, are therefore the automatic Babysitters And Entertainment of the Visiting Kids. My parents have this annoying tendency to befriend people whose children are much younger than Freckles and I, which is how we end up playing video games with 12 and 8 and 6 year old boys all the damn time when they have company. With girls it is slightly easier, as Freckles and I are girls and have probs been raised in the same kind of social structure as the daughters of our friend's parents. But young boys. I don't even know what to do with them. ALL WE HAVE FOR TOYS ARE BARBIES AND THIS ONE BOX OF LEGO, SORRY.

My issue with this is that when it comes time for our yearly summer cabin retreat, my parents just start inviting everyone out. This summer they've already invited out my dad's friend's family, whose daughter's depression I tried to help her through a little over a year ago. I haven't seen her since, and I'm afraid it's going to be awkward and I'm going to cry and ruin everything. Not to mention she tends to lump Freckles in with her own younger sister, who is quite a bit younger, which doesn't really work because Freckles and I sort of run in the same circles, and she always tries to push her out and it just doesn't work that way and then everyone's slightly upset but no one says anything.

The best, though, are their adult friends who are sans childrens. Those friends are the best, because for once Freckles and I get to sit with the grownups and talk after dinner instead of having to go inside and look after the little ones. We get to enjoy adult conversation and best of all, when the adults start getting too boring and adult-y, we can just retreat and do our own thing.


And god, there is so much stuff to do around the house. I get it- I'm living at home on my parents' good graces, I should help out. But all I can do is compare it to how life was back at uni, and how I cleaned like once a week and never, ever, EVER had to help unload twenty bags of groceries. (After getting home from work today, my mother and sister unloaded twenty bags of groceries in the kitchen and my mother asked if I could "put a few things away thanks dear" and then they left to do things that needed to be done. Ugh). Not to mention not having my parents around to watch my every move. Also not having to hear their comments about Ptarckas, whom they don't like STILL because "you'll have to buy a home someday and you need money for that" and "what about when you have kids you need a partner who'll support you" like jesus fucking christ I GET that they are worried b/c he sort of lacks direction but I am the one who's 18, here. I still have like a decade to sort out my shit, and they're worried about this? Not to mention their Conservative Christian-esque views on intimacy and the physical aspects of a relationship. "You're too young for that," they say. "Everything should be covered up at this point." Or how about it's my body, not yours, and I will be as intimate as I damn well feel like. Don't worry, you guys raised me to be smart about this stuff. I'm not going to just go have unprotected sex or anything. Plus I have a boyfriend who knows what consent is! Apparently boys like that are more common than I gave them credit for.

The worst thing about being home is the not-locking door, though. Freckles barged into my room at midnight the other night, and interrupted a skype call between Ptarckas and I which was a leetle bit not something anyone else was invited to to say "YOU GOT ME THE SAME BDAY CARD TWO YEARS IN A ROW." Yes, thanks for telling me that. Couldn't it have waited until morning? It's 12:30, for christ's sake.

I'm still very tempted to get in my car and drive away. But the inevitable is that I have to come back home, and then my parents are mad at me, and I'm kind of in that stage now where I'm worried if I misbehave enough they might actually kick me out. Be like "you wanna be a little shit, go be a little shit somewhere else" which super sucks because I super can't afford to live on my own, not even with my job.


I guess everyone's entitled to a little whining. The big issue, though, is this weekend after weekend "let's go visit family who will inevitably ask about university in a way too general sense" shit. I. Need. Time. To. Relax. Having to be social and polite requires a lot of effort, and is not relaxing.

yer pal,
swegan

Everyone is travelling

I am beginning to experience the phenomenon of feeling like your life is sub-par via facebook. Usually this is true for people in their 20s, watching friends get married and start having kids. I just graduated high school last year, so we're not quite at that stage yet, but I do have a couple of friends (3 on facebook, to be exact) who keep travelling places all the time.

Okay seriously I need a nickname for one of these people, as I have been seeing her more and more. TIME TO USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO FIND A WORD AND THEN ALTER IT SO IT SOUNDS GOOD ENOUGH TO USE.

Hmm, it seems I can actually use the name "clara" which is close to one that I think kind of fits. It is odd to think of calling this person clara, but hey, I have a friend on here whom I refer to as "vince" and I have gotten used to that.

So there's a girl whom I knew very well in ninth grade who's spent a whole year in Europe. I think she already had some friends over there to visit, though, which does make travelling easier. But she's been there for the whole entire year and now she's there for the summer with another girl from high school and they look like they are having such a blast and I AM SO JELLY. But swegan! you cry. You just went to Ireland! That's true, I did, and it was awesome, just like it was last year, plus this time we knew what we were doing. I'd go back to Ireland again any day, as conflicted as I am about their stance on abortion and as confused as I am by how the separation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland works. All I know is that my parents told me to not wear orange while we were there, and I can't remember why, so I just didn't bring any orange clothing. Better to play it safe, I suppose, even if I might be totally wrong about this whole orange thing.

Anyway, there's another girl I sort of knew (well, I'm facebook friends with her, so I knew her well enough to add her) who's spent her entire year on a student exchange in Brazil. She hasn't posted quite as many photos, but she seems to be having the time of her life as well, and again, JELLY. SO JELLY. (Gah, I sound like ptarckas when I type WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME MAKE IT STOP).

And then there's Clara, who went on a trip I think in high school with a tour company, and I think she's been on one or two more since then. They're very short trips but she got to go to Switzerland and JUST I WANT TO GO TO SWITZERLAND SO BADLY OH MY GOD, so yes, JELLY.

I feel like it is almost expected of me at this age that at some point I will travel to find myself. Or just travel to see the world. I think I already have a pretty good idea of who I am, and I've already been lots of places (something for which I consider myself insanely lucky). I do actually have a trip I'd like to do, and it's one my parents took us on before to visit old friends in Oregon they'd gone to school with. We stopped somewhere in BC for a wedding on our way over to Vancouver, then Victoria Island where we visited some friends (that is where I first learned the magic of guacamole on a sandwich). Then we took a ferry down into the states and drove through I think Olympia on our way down the coast. I can't remember where we stopped and stayed once we got into the states, just that we went down the Oregon coast and oh my stars, it was gorgeous. Somewhere along there, I learned how good clam chowder was, too, and then we got to Portland, which actually seems like a really cool city (and now that I hear more about it, very hipster-y, which I'm not sure is entirely good or bad). On the way back up we didn't go by the coast again, but we went through Spokane and did back-to-school shopping, since, as always, there are stores in the US with way better selection and jeans that actually fit me at the time, and I think it was cheaper because we didn't pay taxes (and it wasn't a pain like not paying taxes in Europe, where you have to fill out forms and stick receipts in envelopes and show your purchases at customs which is a pain since then you can't pack them in your suitcase like srsly Europe what the butt).

I'd change a few things about this trip. Firstly, I'd like it to take more than three weeks- not that that was a short time period, but that in order to do the trip I want I would need more time. I'd go down the Oregon coast again, the same way (stopping in Okanagan valley, maybe heading over to Victoria Island, etc) but this time I would stay longer, do more hikes, take more pictures, explore more (and eat more clam chowder, for the love of god). I don't know if I would visit Portland again, maybe. Whenever I think of Portland I just think of the cupcake place and the used bookstores (where I got a couple of books I have reread many times). That is Portland to me. After Oregon, I'd head into California, because in all honesty I actually do want to visit California. I really want to see the redwoods, Big Sur and Yosemite. And San Francisco, because that actually seems like a very cool city. I don't know how much farther south I'd want to go, nor how we'd get back from such a long trip. You can't drive the same way again, that is boring, but I fear that going inwards means hitting a bunch of desert and I can barely stand driving through Saskatchewan sometimes, so I don't know how I'd handle the desert. At least Saskatchewan sometimes has hills (and even trees!) when we drive through to Regina and Saskatoon and sometimes Moose Jaw (and eventually, Indian Head- which I thought more people would know about as a kid since it was plainly obvious to me as we went through there every time we visited my grandparents). Anyway, my point is that it would probably scare me and I'd worry about the car breaking down in the middle of nowhere and just... yeah. I have no great desire to visit anywhere that is a desert (is that where the word "deserted" comes from? Or is it the other way around?).

On that note, Saskatchewan is actually really pretty, for as much as I complain about driving through it. Sometimes it just gets so desolate, and there's no civilization for hours and hours and hours and oh my god, the one time my dad let me drive in Saskatchewan was the worst. There was a grain elevator in the distance, and I could see it, but it never seemed to be getting closer, and the sun was hot and the road was hazy and painfully straight and I just kept almost dozing off... driving there is hard. Like really, really hard. But then I remember my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary and standing outside the old round barn just outside of Indian Head and watching the sun set, and let me tell you, there is nothing like a sunset in Saskatchewan. You can see everything. It's really beautiful.
My dad once said to me that he finds it sort of irritating the way people go on and on about the natural beauty of mountain wilderness and how it needs to be protected. "I think that they're right to protect it," he said, "but I happen to think the prairies are very beautiful and that they also need to be protected." (I'm paraphrasing, this was a long time ago). I've never forgotten that. My heart may be in the mountains, but my soul (if I have one, which is a discussion for another time) is on the prairies. I've always thought that that was the most succinct way of describing it.

anyway. I actually have a desire to travel now, which is really something. But for now, I'm just here, waiting for my lab job to begin (it was supposed to start Wednesday but then the lady who runs the lab (who is the one hiring me) is the only one who knows where she wants me to work and who I am working with and what I will be doing and she hasn't emailed me back. I don't know when to go in to start work. She did just get back from a trip, but that was (supposedly) on Tuesday night, and I've emailed her three times since then. Nothing. I don't want to just go in and sit around all day, but I really want to do something other than sit around and watch movies this summer. I'm starting to fear that this job will never materialize, that I will never hear back, not even if I go into the lab and sit there all day waiting for her to show up (which I really don't want to do but may have to resort to soon if I don't hear back). I feel very useless just sitting at home. I think if I don't hear from her by... well, probably by Monday or Tuesday, I'm going to have to just go sit in the lab all day. Bring a book or two, settle in, and wait. She has to show up eventually, and then I can find out if I still have this job or if something has come up and I'll be working in dad's office all summer). Sigh.

yer pal,
swegan

You know what really got me though

When writing my bio final, I noticed a guy in the room also writing a final who had like, the greatest shoulders of all time. The rest of him was pretty lanky/average, but those shoulders, man. Unf. They were gorgeous. Of course, I told my mom this later, and her response was essentially to ask if I'd talked to him. I said, no, mom, I was preparing to write a final in like 2 minutes, and he was on the other side of the room, and literally everyone else was sitting down. And she was like oh well in the future if that happens you should just go say hi and get his number or something. And I was like great, okay mom, except I'M KIND OF IN A MONOGAMOUS RELATIONSHIP HERE. I'm not going to go asking for guy's numbers! Besides, he was a completely normal guy, one that girls might think of as averagely cute, and it seems those are not the kind of guys I attract. That isn't to say that I attract ugly guys- Ptarckas is like the cutest boy ever- but more that ... I dunno, I feel like I attract really nerdy boys. Like REALLY nerdy boys. Which is probably because I myself am a nerd, but I'm starting to feel like this is what the rest of my life is going to look like, which honestly is fine by me but my parents (and especially my mother) I can tell won't approve.

Perhaps that's part of life, is accepting that never will I date some considered-cute-by-most-girls guy who has a perfect complexion and is pre-med or pre-law or pre-something impressive. I don't know. I don't know what my parents want. I don't know how come my mom gave me the same speech about things-might-fizzle-out-over-the-summer-dear speech that she gave me about Nerd when I was dating him, and she used that same disapproving tone of voice when Ptarckas is really sweet and nice and intelligent and you know what you can hold people up to standards of what you should have accomplished by the time you're 22 all you want but honest to god just let people live their lives. It's like every guy I date now has the potential to be someone I'll get married to, and they're convinced it has to be someone with a good job who can support me and I'm like CHRIST YOU GUYS I'M 18 OKAY I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A HUSBAND. Maybe it worked for my mom to go on dates and then not really date anyone unless she saw a real potential for a future with them, fine, but I wish they could be supportive of this relationship. I'm not asking them to act like it's going to last forever- heaven knows I'm not.... in all likelihood, it won't, and I will probably have many more relationships (or just a few more, who knows) but as of right now this relationship is of an indefinite length so I'm just going to enjoy it for now and see where things go. I'm just asking for them to be happy that I'm happy and that I'm being treated well. That's all.

The way Ptarckas put it when I brought this up with him was "They don't want you to end up with a loser." Which I didn't like, because that implies that Ptarckas is a loser, and I'm some kind of... it's like that whole reacher/settler episode on how i met your mother, about how in every relationship one person is reaching up to be with someone in a relationship and the other person is settling for them, which is a stupid idea. My parents keep painting me as the settler, which is flattering, sure, but like I said, the whole concept is crap. I know they just want the best for me, that they want some totally amazing guy (or girl, if I changed my mind- thankfully my parents are not closed-minded bigots) who is like perfect in every way and has 0 flaws and a super good career and is a successful go-getter and... like does anyone like that even exist?

I worry about Ptarckas in this, too. I know how nice it is that his mother (from my interpretation of our interactions) really likes me and approves of me and thinks I'm a good person for him to be dating, and I know how sucky it would be to not have that approval. My parents like Ptarckas and think he's a smart, respectful, kind boy, but it still feels to me like they don't like that he's undecided about what he wants to do with his life. My opinion is that that doesn't really affect me right now. Just... I don't know.

I just want my parents to be happy about this. I'm 18 and in university and getting good grades and making friends and have a boyfriend who makes me very happy and treats me incredibly decently.... ugh. Parents. If I have kids, I'll probably do the same thing, I know, but it's still annoying.

yer pal,
swegan

On my parents

Becoming an adult is weird.

I was definitely one of those teenagers who trusted my parents quite a bit. I sought out advice from them frequently, and often followed unwanted advice because I knew it was the right thing to do (although it pissed me off that I couldn't just figure things out for myself a lot of the time). I'm still quite close to them, and we get along very well, but I have this trouble with thinking of them as being wrong about anything. My parents are both very intelligent, and I find it incredibly difficult to argue with them, especially since they agree on a lot of things and back each other up.

The issue of "do what you love" vs. "do what will get you a career" is an interesting one, as it is for everyone. On one hand, I think my parents have a point emphasizing that my life will have much less stress in it if I have a secure career or employment of some sort, but I think that's the whole reason why they pushed me away from the arts, that's the whole reason why when I was 6 they violently shattered the dream I had of being an artist. At the time I had thought that people just picked whatever job they wanted and grew up to do that and they would be okay and have enough money, and my mom's saying "Well sure, you can be an artist... if you want to starve" really stopped that train in its tracks. And I feel like my entire life, it's been that way- no matter what career I've picked, they've found a way to find its worst aspect and play that up to me. It's not just me, either- my sister has probably had it worse than me, because I eventually took an interest in science.

And I don't regret that. Science is interesting, science is fascinating, science is what I want to work in. But at the same time I hate the idea that it pleases them, these parents who want me to succeed so badly that they've chased all the other dreams away, whether it was the dream of being an artist at 6 or a writer at 12, or even a researcher at 17. And all the time when people ask why I'm studying biology, career always comes up. I was discussing it with the PM for EPASS, and he stopped me and said "yeah, but are you studying biology because you love it or because you can get a job in it?" and I stopped and thought and said I was hoping that I could find a balance there- something I loved that was reasonable and would probably result in some career stability.

The other thing is that my parents are giving me a lot of financial support- without them, I definitely wouldn't be here right now. They've always thought that it's important to support me (and my siblings) as we get an education, so that we can (and I indirectly quote), "get a good job and do the same for our kids." Which is a nice sentiment. But at the same time it makes me feel like I have to get a good job in order to qualify for that financial support, and that's stressful. It would be nice, yes, to be able to do university on my own terms, but now I feel like I'm not allowed to drop a class or fail anything, since I'm not the one footing the bill. Going to university for five years costs more money, so I'd sure as hell better graduate in four or head into med school or something along those lines. And I just hate that. I feel like prioritizing school is important, but at the same time, it makes me feel like I can't prioritize anything else. It also makes me feel pretty useless. I'm horrendously bad at finding volunteering opportunities, which makes me miss being a part of NHS last year, and I know volunteering gives such a good sense of purpose and makes you feel like you're actually doing something and I miss it so much but volunteer opportunities just intimidate me. It was hard enough to go to the nursing home and do things.


I think I might need to accept the fact that I might be introverted, just a little bit. It wouldn't be surprising, now that I think about it- there's lots of introverts in my family. My dad is like that, he's quiet and doesn't talk much, but he has a circle of people he really cares about and cares for. My sister is painfully shy and has close friends who she talks with about anything (I feel privileged to be one of those friends, although it's not that surprising since I've known her all her life). I have an uncle whom I've only seen about three times in my life, and I'm not sure why exactly, but I get the feeling he's just not a very social person.
My mom, though, has always pushed it on me that I need to spend time with my friends, that I need to call them to have three hour phone conversations, because otherwise they wouldn't feel like I loved them or appreciated them. And for her it was so easy to call up friends and chat; for me, using the phone has only recently become not horribly terrifying. It used to make me cry, the idea of trying to call up friends. I prefer electronic communication, but my mother has always insisted that it's not good enough, it's not instant enough, you'll never get an answer unless you just call them, honey. But I don't want to, calling is so intrusive, it demands your attention NOW, whereas a text can wait there until you are ready to respond. Besides, I used to be ridiculously terrified of dialing a wrong number.
I am just now thinking maybe there's nothing wrong with not wanting to go out on weekends, with only wanting to spend time with select people, with wanting to spend time with myself. Maybe I am introverted and maybe I like being alone and maybe there's actually nothing wrong with that when I've been lead to believe my whole life that that's abnormal and weird, what weird people do, and I'll never be successful and happy if I don't do that.
Maybe it's okay that I like to spend a lot of time with myself. Maybe it's okay to find comfort in that. There's certainly nothing wrong with it, and it's not like I want to excommunicate myself completely. I will reach a point at which I need social contact, and that is why I have my circle of friends.

It's just very liberating to be able to think, no, my parents aren't always right, and not have them here to contradict it. For so long I have been stiflingly close to them and not allowed to make a lot of my own decisions about my own life. However, now that I think about it, isn't the money in my RESP my money? As in, if I want to take five years to go to school instead of the traditional four so that I can have more time for volunteering or just feeling less stressed, I can do that? I'm starting to think it might be nice even to just have that option. My classes next semester all sound so terribly difficult- chemistry (now it's harder), math (also harder), biology (this one's okay), women's and gender studies (the essays in here might kill me), and astrophysics (I am now severely worried about the physics part). Although.... didn't I think last semester that philosophy might be a big pile of awful and hard? Philosophy turned out to be very interesting and even though I have been saying for the past couple of weeks that I might not take any more, that might be a lie... I might take more philosophy. Fuck, I need arts credits, and not a lot of arts courses interest me. Maybe one of these classes will be too hard, but I did just have an epiphany.

I thought, you know what, if I need to drop a class and I've carefully considered all the factors and come to the conclusion that it's the right decision, it is my life and my choice to make, after all. And if it turns out to be a mistake, then so what? Aren't I supposed to make mistakes? Am I not supposed to try things and make my own path, or something like that? This is my life, not my parents', and while I greatly appreciate their support, I can't let it be control.
Part of this involves my relationship as well. It is not up to my parents to tell me what I am and am not ready for, it is up to me and me alone. They are not the ones dating this boy, I am, and even though it's weird for me to think of myself as a grownup, I am a grownup now. I think I am doing just fine so far. And if they do pull out the financial support rug, well, I've got some savings, I'll figure something out. But my parents still care about me, and in the end, I should seriously figure out if Registered Education Savings Plans are actually money that now belongs to me to use towards my education or if that's still my parents' money.


I think I also need some sleep. I still have a lot of studying to do. On my own terms, of course, which means sleeping in past breakfast (although today's Saturday, so brunch is on for the weekend, yessssss) again and then wasting time until lunch (or brunch b/c WEEKEND), and then working all afternoon.

yer pal,
swegan :)

Someday all this will be stories and I like the idea of that

I like the idea of telling people about my university years someday, and getting to say "I had a fantastic first semester- I have no idea how it was so good, but I managed to do well in all my classes, visit home a couple of times, make new friends, get involved in an awesome club that allowed me to explore my interest in space, and I got a boyfriend." Like how. How is this happening. How am I doing this. IT LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE I HAVE MY LIFE ALL FIGURED OUT AND I STILL DON'T FEEL LIKE I SHOULD FEEL THAT WAY.

Maybe that's one of those societal things, though, where everyone assumes that no one has their life figured out and it's like no okay I don't have my entire future planned to the letter but I have the next four years or so roughly figured out and that's good enough for me, I can build on that, and I'm right at the beginning of everything right now and it is so much fun. My job right now is to learn and grow, both in school and as a person and in my relationships, whether they be friendships or more "coworker/associate" type relationships or relationship relationships.

Another thing I don't like, though, is that reasonably I can say that I will date lots more people before I settle down. I don't like that because when you're in the start of a new relationship and everything's all peaches and sprinkles, you don't like to think of that fact, because it effectively puts an expiration date on your relationship. I don't want to put an expiration date on this because at the moment it makes me really, really happy. But I guess it's the same thing with saying that friends come and go from your life, and some friendships grow stronger and some fade away and that's just how it is, but that doesn't mean you look at each of your friendships and start thinking that statistically they won't all work out. I suppose some people get married to people they dated in high school, or they only have a few relationships, or their relationships last years and years. It's like on how i met your mother how Lily and Marshall have been together forever, but then everyone around them dates a bunch of people before settling down. I suppose I should just stop freaking out about it, enjoy the relationship while it lasts (and the future is looking bright, my friends, especially because I am an adult now and I get to say what I am and am not comfortable with- I also wanted to talk about that, but in a second), and just enjoy life while it's good. Maybe my life will always be this way, maybe I'm just good at looking on the bright side, maybe life will have downs where things are hard or sad. Either way doesn't change the fact that I'm okay right now and that's all I need to worry about.

Speaking of the "I am an adult now" thing- what I mean by that is that when I mentioned to my parents earlier this week that Grag was going to come over and we were going to skype with Vince (she really wanted to meet him), I had said "so he'll be sitting right here" and pointed next to me on my bed, and then realized that I was talking to my parents, and quickly said "or on the couch." My mother got that mother-tone in her voice and said "he better not be sitting there" to which my dad agreed and then my mom said "You're not ready for that" and that just struck me as, to put it in my mom's words, colossally stupid. I immediately retorted with "Don't you think that's for me to decide?" Then they tried to tell me that they knew best or blabbity bla, that whole "you're young you don't really know what you're talking about" thing, and then my dad said "It's not control, it's concern." To which I replied that yes, I knew that, and I did like that they were concerned about me because of course they would be, they're my parents. But it's like they don't realize that saying "You're not ready for that" does sound like control.
In the end, he did end up sitting next to me in my room, and then there was some stuff that happened which we have decided to call "cuddling" that was actually very enjoyable, to put it lightly. And as it turns out, I was totally fine with it, and so my parents were wrong. Of course they were- they're not me. They can't possibly tell me what I am or am not ready for. Only I can. Of course there's things I'm not ready for- and that's fine. But I am the one who makes those decisions, not my parents.
I do feel a little rebellious, though, considering that they wouldn't let me be alone with a boy for all of high school and now there's nothing stopping me beyond time constraints. And, lo and behold, I actually chose to date a guy who is respectful of my wishes and stops when I ask him to and respects my boundaries, and also makes sure to check in and be like "how are you doing?" every now and then, which I have obviously picked up on and have been doing as well. Although sometimes even answering that question with words is impossible because I forget how to words, so you can tell I picked a good guy ;)

The future is bright, my friends. Even despite the snowfall/freezing rain warning for tomorrow. Things are good and I am trying to just not question that for right now.

yer pal,
swegan :)