Growing up is hard...

Who knew that growing up would be so challenging?! I knew there were difficult parts of growing up, specifically money and time management, but I didn't know the issues I'm facing now would be a part of growing up. I always thought I was certain about so much in my life. I want to do this and live here and be with this person and have this many kids and live in this type of house. Now I'm literally just like "I don't know" or "I'm not sure right now" about a lot in my life. I've been having a particularly rough week and honestly I have been an emotional wreck. This is usual for me recently. I can usually handle stress and issues pretty well. I am not letting these issues ruin my happiness, but it is just bugging at me. I was at the point where I just kept taking naps in order to avoid thoughts about the future, which reminds me of a different scary point in my life around this time last year. All my issues go away temporarily as I sleep and as soon as I wake up they literally flood my brain. It's exhausting being me and having the thoughts I have.

I talked to my dad about these issues and tried SO hard to not cry and be a "big girl", but I just broke down because I don't want to waste time and I want to make the right decisions while being happy now and in the future. I just don't know what will bring me that yet. I know I work my hardest in all that I am passionate about, but I just want to find that point in my life where I'm so content with pretty much everything. I'm not saying that life will ever be perfect and always go my way, but I'm saying I want to be at that comfortable, truly happy point in my life. So of course my dad was all worried about me because of how much stress this was causing me. We talked more about this and he said he's "200%" behind me and knows that I can do so much and that he doesn't think I realize how smart/good I am at school. It's amazing having parental support, but I was trying to make him realize that my main goal in life is to be able to be completely dependent upon myself and not like 25 years from now. I want this to happen before I'm like 30...is that so wrong?! I know my parents will always help me out and don't mind and my dad said "what's the point of being a parent then?"...which is true, but I still don't want to be this mid-20s girl that still lives at home & has dad paying for big things in my life. I do pay for so much & do as much as I can given the situation, but I just want to not have to depend on them. I want them to have less expenses and live more comfortably. 

I argued that it's because I care so much about my future and he said "maybe too much" because I can't plan everything for the future. I know this is reality, but I like to have a plan and know what's going on. Uncertainty scares me. Choosing the path I want to take in life and looking at all the pros/cons, obstacles, and outcomes is just so overwhelming. For some it may be easy to just graduate college and move on, but for me it's definitely not that easy. I analyze everything and look to how things will affect me in the long run.

I don't want to live an average paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. I want to do so much more in life that just the average/regular. I just want to find my correct path in life that will make me feel complete.

One Path.

I have been thinking lately about how there are basically infinite options and pathways in life, but we personally will only know the one we chose to go on. I seem to find myself saying, "what if I had done this differently" or "what if this didn't happen, where would I be?", etc. It seems like a lot of people go through points in their life where they question "what if?" and the thing is we will probably never know the answer to those "what if?" questions because they are just hypothetical. I have been trying to avoid thinking like that because there is really nothing I can do to change the past (to my knowledge at least). It's just very mind boggling to think that one small detail in our life could have a ripple effect and change our path in life completely. Maybe that's why I am so indecisive in most situations. I almost always have to weigh out the pros and cons and make sure I'm set on a decision before I make it. This holds true for things on a small scale to a much larger scale. I don't want to regret my decisions, so I take a long time to decide upon things.
I'll never know what could have been if I went to a different college or if I had said something differently or if I decided to turn left instead of right while driving lost. It bugs me that I'll never know, but I just have to live with it and always think about my actions & decisions.

I also notice how so many people take the path most traveled and then have to learn from big mistakes (whcih turn into regrets) that they made while traveling that path. They could have looked at the people who made mistakes before them: friends, family, etc. If you see the mistakes of those people and know that you don't want to end up the way they ended up, then why would you follow them? Why would you take the same path to basically the same fate?
I guess I just have a much different mindset than most my age. I always am thinking, if/when I were to have kids, would I want to tell them "don't make the mistakes I made" or would I want to tell them "do what I did"? I'm not saying I would tell them to follow my every move, but I mean "do what I did" as in stay true to yourself, stay out of trouble, do good in school, do your best, be a good person in various aspects of life, and so on. If you don't want to tell your kids, "don't do what I did", then why are you doing that stuff now? It's sad because some people will never learn until they face the consequences of their actions and sometimes that's still not enough. I don't need to make the mistake to learn from it, I've seen many others make the mistakes and I've learned by saying I DON'T want to be where they are.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.