"For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, they are plans for good, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11
Ok so I am definately going through a quarter life crisis! At 26 years old I'm looking around at all my friends and peers getting married, having babies, buying houses, and getting degrees. I have been in 5 weddings so far and I'm scheduled for another this coming October. I have been at the forefront of coordinating shower after shower, engagement parties, bachelorette parties...you name it and i've helped to plan it.
When my mother was my age she had a PhD and was teaching at a local university in New Orleans (UNO). When my father was my age he was starting his pest control business that he still operates today. Back then, my parents were cultivating their pathways to success..a pathway that I am so very proud of.
Today, my dad is the only licensed entymologist in the state of Louisiana. And to spite the adversities he experienced brought on by racism...he perservered and obtained his licensure nearly 30 years ago.
My mom was the first African-American female to obtain tenure at the University of New Orleans...And she went on to be alot more firsts, paving the way for future generation to come. She was at the forefront of countless movements, and through her work the study of environmental justice was born!
Yes...I think my parents kind of a big deal!
Which leads me to ponder what the hell i'm on the pathway to accomplish????
I mean i'm really confused. I feel like my life is everything but together. Over the last 5 years I have changed professions 4 times! My mayoral fellowship with the city's health department is ending in 5 days. I do not have another job lined up, just praying and interviewing at this point. I have not gone to Tulane to go register for my PhD classes that I plan to begin taking in the fall. I took my first time homebuyers classes, but I am in no position to buy a home in the midst of all my confusion. I consider career changes at least 6 times per day. I live in New Orleans so my social life consists of running into the same people over and over again at the same events...womp, womp, womp....And did I mention i'm too poor to feed my shopping addiction which is the one thing that keeps me sane? And don't get me started on my non-existent dating life...so marriage and a family is no where in the picture anytime soon for me. So where is my life headed...ugh!!!!!!!
So as result I am experiencing the ultimate quarter life crisis...I am beyond confused! I feel like my options are limited, i'm getting old, and I don't know which way to go...I never thought my twenties would be like this. I have spent more time worrying about my future than actually enjoying the present. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say "Dee you can't be serious??? I mean what the hell are you doing with your life..." And all I can come up with is I have no clue.
I used to have direction and somehow it got lost in my life's twists and turns...I had my life all planned out and then I graduated from college...Since then I decided to just go with the flow and that has been disastrous, yet meaningful if that makes sense at all. I mean here I stand more clueless than ever before...but at this point in my life I understand that everything that happened in the past has brought me to the point where I am today and it all makes perfect sense (NOW)...
At 21, I couldn't understand why I was working as an assignment desk assistant a WWL-TV News. Then one day, while rolling teleprompter for the afternoon news and finishing up a 5 am to 5 pm shift, I met the deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Communications. He called me in for an interview the next day and that same week I was hired as a press writer. Then as time progressed that job didn't make any sense to me...but I couldn't figure out what else to do...I mean I wanted to go to graduate school, but in what?????
So then Katrina devastated the love of my life, New Orleans, and I was forced to move to Baton Rouge. I was miserable living out there and I spent a year trying to figure out how I could get back home. And then one day it came to me like an epiphany...just go back to school. So I looked up graduate programs at Tulane University (cause its in New Orleans) and saw that the School of Public Health had a concentration in Health Communications and Education and I thought to myself hmmm this will be the perfect opportunity to tie in my collective work experiences of working in health news at CNN,being Health Section Editor of my college newspaper, working in broadcast journalism at the news station, and then in communications at the mayor's office...I'll do this! So I applied on line, took the GRE, and moved back home within some weeks of my decision.
But then when I moved home and started school, my personal life began to drastically fall apart. During my second semester of graduate school, my boyfriend of 3 years and I decided to part ways...and I was devastated. At the time I though that he was the man that I would marry. Somehow, through the depression, insomnia, weight loss, and hair loss...I kept my grades together. In spite of it all, I pulled through and graduated with my MPH.
Life is sooo funny, when I was working in the Mayor's Office in 2004/2005 I thought if I could just get out of here, I'll never come back...and I got out of there, got a master's degree only to come right back as a mayoral fellow in the health department.
But today it makes sense that I would do a mayoral fellowship in the city's health department (of which i would've known nothing about had I not peviously worked in the Mayor's Office) with the greatest health director in the world, Dr. Kevin U. Stephens, MD, JD (Google him)...And it makes perfect sense that my ex-boyfriend and I broke-up back then because today he makes my skin crawl (so marriage would've been out of the question)...and it makes perfect sense that I had to find a graduate program that was in both health and communications...It makes perfect sense that two years ago my hair fell out, it was time to grow a new head of hair anyway...lol...Even the friendhips that I lost and thought would have lasted a lifetime, I have accepted that those people were just there for a reason or a season. All of the trials and tribulations...even Katrina makes sense now. These meaningful disasters have helped to shape my life and continue to shape who I am and where I'm going...
And as for the future, ya'll just pray for me...I'm following God's Plan!
1 comment:
I think that most women go through this. I remember when I was your age...and I was trying to balance what was more important getting married, going to grad school or starting my career. Thankfully the person that I was dating, who is now my husband, understood that my education and career was important to me. I truly believe that good think come to those who wait, even though sometimes were are impatient waiting for them.
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