Odysseus

Today was my day off. I awoke late and spent my morning with my mom and her friend L. We walked around the lake and across the dam toward the neighborhood surrounded by willow trees. The clouds were dark--we didn't need a weather man to tell us that rain was coming. Instead of turning around, we kept along our path. We ended up talking about L.'s nephew who didn't make it in the Air Force. He used to work at a diner in Jerseyville, but now he does odd jobs for his father. The guys he hangs out with are people who "would work just enough to make money for pot and partying," as someone has said. They are considered deadbeats, because they aren't driven in their lives. "Aren't you glad you have direction in your life, Sarah? At least you know what you want to do with your life," said L.

All the while, I'd been secretly thinking how I had a lot in common with her nephew.

In some ways, that's the way we all are. I mean, my generation. Schaap once called my generation the "Odyssey generation." We really don't know what we are doing with our lives, and we really don't want to work that hard to find out. We'd prefer to remain children forever, having fun and never really growing up.

I'm a victim of that sentiment, I guess. If I've learned one thing about myself, it's that I don't want to figure out what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. I don't want to settle on becoming a teacher because I don't know if that's where my passions lie. I don't want to think that I'll spend the rest of of my 9-5 weekdays in an office, writing business articles for corporations who wouldn't know my name from the next office girl. I don't want to think that I'll be able to map my life achievements out in decades. But I will one day. Maybe we all will.

It scares me to grow up, to know that in two short years I'll not be able to even consider myself to be a child anymore. I'll have my college loans to pay off, plus a mortgage or a car loan... Eek. I get goosebumps simply thinking about it.

And to think that when I was a kid I saw growing up as being the best thing that could happen to me. I didn't want to run around in my yard and build forts in the trees for the rest of my life. That was kid stuff, I used to believe. But then one day, I woke up and I was a sometimes lonely, sometimes happy college student who couldn't figure out what to do with her life. A summer intern and a smock-clad checker-outer. A silly older sister and a moody daughter. An Odysseus like all others, trying to find her way to her own personal Ithaca somewhere across that vast expanse of ocean.