I’m a rule follower. I just am. I always have been. Rules feel safe. I like safety. And structure. Without structure and a schedule I feel lost and purposeless. Hell, even with structure and schedule I feel lost and anxious a decent amount of the time.
Because of this, I am seen as a goody-goody. And people aren’t afraid to tell me that. When I was 16 I was seeing this guy- he was older, more experienced, cooler, etc. I don’t know what he saw in me, but he saw something, at least briefly. We spent a lot of time together and he would always think aloud, “I shouldn’t say this,” “I shouldn’t let you listen to this,” “I’m such a bad influence.” And in the 6 years since, I’ve heard a lot of similar patronizing statements.
“I’m gonna get you drunk!”
I’m not sure why other people seem to have such a vested interest in ‘corrupting’ me, but for some reason, they do.
Despite their statements and half-assed efforts, I am a rule follower. Or at least I was. But as I grow, in this past year especially, I can feel things shifting.
Part of the reason I love rules and structure is because of my anxiety. I feel most at ease when I am in control. Of course rationally I do understand that I can’t always be in control. I can’t control others and their behavior, I can’t control the environment. But still, I like to be in control and I spend a lot of time trying to control things beyond my power.
Control works best in an academic setting, where the cause-effect relationship is fairly simple.
If I spend X amount of time studying, being tutored, working on papers, I should earn Y grade. This mentality has enabled me to graduate from an accelerated program, completing four years worth of undergraduate work in three years, and two years worth of graduate work in one.
And I have been this way for years- working hard and following the rules. I’m not a complete nerd- I still find plenty of time to binge watch series after series on Netflix. But overall I have been on a path of doing X to earn Y. From the time I was young, I was repeatedly told that I was going to college, and that in order to do so I needed certain grades and extracurricular activities.
I didn’t even understand what it meant. I remember confessing to my dad when I was first moving into college that I used to believe that college was like Heaven, a universal place where everyone goes at a certain time. I thought that after high school, all the graduates left and went to the same place, “College.” But I didn’t know what it meant or why they went.
So from the time I was young, I was pushed to be on the honor roll and involve myself in different extracurriculars. I needed good grades in middle school to get into the private high school, because the private high school would look better on college applications.
When I got to the private high school I needed to get certain grades and standardized testing scores in order to get into a good college. And when I found the good college and learned that my freshman year would be the first year of a brand-new accelerated 3+1 social work program, I enrolled. That was the new goal. I needed good grades in the undergraduate program to maintain eligibility for the graduate program. And in the graduate program I needed to work as hard as possible so that I could graduate with my Masters of Social Work at 22, a few years ahead of my typical-track peers, and have something to show for the years and years of work I had done. By the time I got to undergrad, this pressure no longer came from my parents or teachers, it came from me. But I did it. I graduated from an accelerated 3+1 program at a small, reputable school in New England, and so far I am the first and only individual to have completed it.
But I wondered too late, why?
Why was I rushing through college? Apparently they’re “the best years,” though every time I hear someone say that, I feel sorry for them. If you peak at 21, and live the rest of your life and it’s never as fun as college, what the hell have you been up to?
I had worked hard and rushed for what? To start working for the rest of my life? To start paying bills and ‘adulting’? Why? The goal that had been imposed on me since I was a child was college. And as the end approached, I realized that the goal would be achieved, and there was no new goal. I needed to find a goal that I wanted to set for myself- to figure out what, besides academics, I wanted to work towards.
So I decided to change course. I, the rule-following creature of habit, lover of structure and schedule, decided to mix things up a bit. All throughout my youth, I felt like I was working hard for others. Like I said, when I was being told about college, I did not even have an understanding of what it meant. I was working hard in middle school so that the private high school would want me. I was striving for As in high school because if I got a B my mom would yell at me. In hindsight, being scolded by my mom isn’t that scary, but I wanted to avoid it. I was going to high school early every day for English grammar tutoring, and spending my free period with my math teacher, so that a ‘good college’ would want me. I was doing what others expected me to do, and those became my expectations for myself.
So now I am doing something for me. I moved to a completely new place where I don’t know a soul, to have an experience completely different from anything that I have done before. Today is my fifth day as an au pair in a small town in central Spain.
Welcome to Sushi, feel free to pass on through or to witness the next three months of adventure and self-reflection and discovery.
