Evolving and trying to find my place

I have been trying to formulate my thoughts for weeks now, because I knew I wanted to write about this in a blog but I could never really figure out how to articulate exactly what I wanted to say. I still don't know if I know, but I am going to try.

The reason I know that I am meant to write about this is because I have had several conversations about this particular topic with several different people and it was never planned it just kind of came up while we were talking about something completely different.

Being a twenty something woman with whom the majority of my friends are younger than me, I can't help but reflect back on things that happened in high school and college and how much I have changed since then. I find myself getting really frustrated with the children I see on a daily basis (I work with children from preschool through fifth grade) because they have no respect for others and are constantly wanting more and more selfishly. I just feel like I was never like that when I was younger, but realistically I am sure I was, I just didn't see it through the same eyes as I am seeing it now- from someone who is older and has learned about the right attitude to have. So while it is easy to get frustrated with these children, it is just a part of their growing up process and if I were to catch up with them years from now, they would probably be different (hopefully) and would share the same views as I am having right now.

This got me thinking about how I was in high school and then in college and while up until recently I would have said in a heartbeat that I have not changed much at all, but that is not true. I have gone through a transformation of sorts and am now seeing it through a different set of eyes much like I am seeing how I was when I was in elementary school through the eyes of the children I work with. High school pretty much sucked. I didn't really think so at the time, but looking back on it, I was pretty much miserable because I was trying so hard to desperately fit in and in my case, that required going against alot of the things I believed in. While the "popular" kids were rebelling and going out and drinking, smoking and doing other stuff that I was not comfortable with I found myself in a bit of a dilemma. If any of you know me, you are probably finding it hard to picture me doing any of these things and I take that as a compliment. In the end, I decided that I needed to be true to myself and true to things I believed in and in turn, I was not popular. I lost alot of friends and even among those select few that I was close to I had the reputation of being "closeminded, conservative, old fashioned, goody goody" and you get the idea. I didn't really think I was but compared to everyone else I guess I must have been. I was desperately trying to find people who were the same as me, and even though I thought I found them in high school, once I got to college those same people rebelled then instead of doing it in high school. I remember one of my friends losing her virginity and not wanting me to know about it because she was afraid of how I was going to react and that I would judge her and I remember that was kind of a wake up call for me. Is this really what I wanted to be known for? I can now pinpoint this as one of the key moments for me to "rebel" in my own way.

I went to a Christian, private college when the rest of my friends went to a secular, public college known for being a party school and so it was natural that we were going to grow apart. It didn't happen at first though. When I say that I rebelled I don't mean it in the way that I went out and started doing all this stuff and getting into trouble because I never did any of that. I just meant that I was a little bit turned off from some of the people I went to school with because they were a little bit extreme and I started to see how my friends viewed me. I started looking at these classmates as being extremely closeminded and judgemental just like my high school friends had seen me. I all of a sudden felt as though I was the openminded one of the group and that was a bit of a surprise. I think in a way, in high school when I was surrounded by people who were more openminded I equated that with being rebellious and getting into trouble and now that I was in college I saw that wasn't necessarily true and that the other extreme was not what I wanted either. I kind of prided myself on being somewhere in the middle and the friends I met there matched me so perfectly. Two of my best friends are people I met in college and while we are different people, they understand me and they understand what it meant to be somewhere in the middle and to sometimes play devils advocate and to love people without judging them. I finally felt as though I fit in and this is one of the main reasons why I miss college so much. I loved everything about it. I loved my school because it gave me the chance to really live out my faith. I was used to being a minority in high school and here I was in the majority and that felt awesome. I was not looked at as "weird or closeminded". I felt protected from the real world and that suited me perfectly for the time being. Then I graduated.

While college was four years worth of bliss where I could truly be myself without any fear I was brought back into the "real world" and forced to in a way start over. I went back to my church where I am honestly the only person that is in my age bracket, or if they are, they are married and/or have children and I can't really relate to them as much. I went back to feeling like a minority and I found myself changing again. I reunited with some of my high school friends and in my quest to show them I had changed and that I was not the same uptight, judgemental person that I was in high school I went to bars with them, and even had a drink or two but never to the point where I was drunk or out of control. Essentially I was still the same person but I was trying to fit in and did things that I didn't really like in order to prove something to them. And somehow, in that process I found myself reverting back to that ultra conservative persona. While I still believe that we need to love people without judging them I am not about to condone a lifestyle that goes against what I believe in. I will continue to be a friend and love the person just not the behavior.

I guess what I am trying to say is that while college was amazing it was kind of a fantasy. I needed those four years to figure out who I was and I really do feel like I have, but it's not exactly realistic to think that I can live in that "safe haven" forever. I then had to let go of those high school friends because our interests and priorites were too different. I really feel like they didn't understand me and they didn't really try. They wanted me to be like them and I'm not. Instead of trying to understand me and what I believe and what my priorities are they just refused to see it and tried to make me into something I am not. I couldn't do that to myself anymore and I have not really spoken to the majority of them in a long time. This leaves me with another dilemma similar to the one I had in high school. I am trying desperately to find what I had in college- people who understand me and accept me for who I am but who also have the same priorities and religious views as I do and I am struggling with that. I have alot of amazing friends who I hang out with alot, but they are all in either high school or college and just don't quite get where I am at in life right now as much as they try and they really shouldn't have to because I don't think I could understand it when I was at that age either.

I have finally found myself and I am not about to change who I am for anybody but sometimes I wish that I could be like other people and just not worry about the consequences of their actions, but I have learned to accept that it's just not me. I have changed since leaving college and even though I don't think I am reverting back to who I was in high school because in high school I wasn't sure who I was and now I am, but my interests have changed. For example, two things that are hugely essential to the person I am now are baseball and country music. Those are two of my biggest interests which I did not have in high school or college it came about after and I can't imagine me being me without either of those things. So, while some of my interests have changed, my basic, essential views on controversial subjects have not.

I guess what my point is, that we as individuals change alot when growing up and even when we do feel as though we have found ourselves, we are still constantly evolving and growing and some views might be changed, but I think it's important to not let other people dictate the people we are. If we feel strongly about something we can't let other people change our minds for us and we can't feel guilty about it when we don't agree with someone. On the other hand, I don't think we can really try to change other people's views as well.. that is something they have to do on their own. We just have to be understanding and love them regardless.