I must, I may, i do


When I was six, there were so many things I wanted to become, the fact that I had to get older first didn’t bother me. Every part of the job market was explored and there was nothing I truly disliked. In my opinion, there was nothing I couldn’t become. The people around me, however, disagreed.

I would get mad when people told me that becoming a teacher and a doctor was not a combination that would work. Becoming a mother was not a job either, I’d have to choose at least one thing that earned me money instead of just costing me something materialistic.

Young kids today are pushed in so many different directions and each and every one of them is a must. You must do your homework, you must get good grades, you must have a social life, you must start working at the age of fifteen, you must work towards getting a good job, earning enough money, work hard. I could never wrap my head around this lifestyle, my creative mind was far too wide to live in this box of unhappiness, as I viewed. It was a norm, though, so I figured that agreeing to all the rules was my biggest chance at survival.

         These thoughts and opinions, which is all they are, slipped through the cracks of my life and became my reality. Any time I came across something that earned me money, I’d push through, despite the fact weather I liked it or not, just to have what I thought was satisfaction. I ended up either depressed or stressed out in every one of these situations and I never understood why. If I must, and I get something out of it, and I just do, why am I not becoming happier by the day?

         I am in between jobs at the moment, getting more bored with every minute that rushes by me. Weeks pass and I started to see the opportunity to dream again. Creativity started flowing. Filling all the holes in my life with a job, earning money, materials I don’t need; it was never what kept me alive. All is gone now, and I still breathe, maybe even better than before. I don’t need the clothes I could buy with all the money I earned, or the very expensive shampoo, the millions of cushions on my bed; they were not what made me happy. I could leave everything behind, sit on a rock and be happy. Now it was time fill in my time again.

Yet, it wasn’t until I got a school-assignment to ‘earn’ a large sum of money in a short period of time, for something I truly want, with the skills I have that I like… that I could dream about all the opportunities that were out there. All the things I will achieve if I just know that I may, accept that there is no must anymore, there never was.

         I decided to go away for a weekend, keeping the fresh inspiration as close to myself as I can. Just the sea, the beach and me. A good old country song fades in with the waves and I feel at peace. The cold, red hands in my back pockets and the wind scrubbing my dry skin. If it was just this, for the rest of my life, that was okay. There was no thing that was able to make me more content with life.

         If I were six again, I’d hold on to the fact that there will never be one job that keeps you happy for the rest of your life. You change and so will your life. I would have tried every single thing that came to mind, just because I wanted to and see where it could go.

         To finish the assignment, earning money, I pulled in my younger brother and sister, whom are in their early teens. They don’t feel the responsibility that life carried into my world a few years ago. They don’t see the impossibilities out there, they just see opportunities. To do whatever you want, whatever puts a smile on your face. They planned out my future, husband and all and I can’t say that I wasn’t happy with what they had come up with. It is everything I could want, looking deep down inside. They didn’t know, but they knew me better than I knew myself. They scraped down the wall of insecurities of not making it out there. They fall too, but just get up, like nothing ever happened.

Look at my little nephew, trying to walk he isn’t going to think: “I fell, well, I will just not walk for the rest of my life.”. I went back to exactly that basic fact and filled every hole in my heart I would find. And those I can’t find yet will be filled if I continue this way. No guilt, no fear, no can’t. I mustn’t; I may, and I do what makes me happy.

 


Love, Stephanie Garland