Next Steps

Today I participated in an online orientation for my next educational endeavor. I graduated this past December from a university here in Oregon with my BS in psychology. That fact is something that hasn’t really set in, let alone the realization that I will be starting graduate school in a matter of a couple of days. The orientation was interesting and made me question the level of maturity my fellow classmates possess, due to their relaxed grammar and spelling during the online interaction. 

While there is a time and a place for an informal approach during online chats, I don’t think that grad school is considered an appropriate place for such usage. Seeing the words, “cuz,” “u” and “in da house,” cause me to cringe usually, let alone in that kind of a setting. Add to that the appearance of people coming across as needing to be spoon fed information instead of taking the initiative and actually LOOKING for the information, well, frankly, I find it frustrating. But that may be due to my LOVE of research and desire to find an answer to questions I may ponder.

Working toward my goal is exciting, yet doesn’t feel real…yet. When I think about my chronological age, which will be *gasp* 35 later this month, I often feel like I should have fulfilled plenty of milestones that others my age have experienced. For example, married, kids, buying a house, a stable and real job, possibly a divorce (or two) and all the other things that “normal” women have achieved by my age. I am not sure if I should consider myself fortunate for not meeting those steps in life or if I am a bit of a failure for skipping them, or at least at this point in my life.

When I compare my life to that of others, even family members, I can’t help but feel like an outlier of society. I couldn’t imagine living my life as a “traditional” woman in the way of getting married right out of high school (heck I was 16 and not living in the backwoods), popping out a couple of kids, having a dead end job that I loathed and coming home to cook dinner. Instead, I joined the military, served 12 years, worked a couple of odd jobs to make ends meet and have two dogs instead of kids. 

Oh, and no mate to share my madness with…need to work on that, maybe.