Leaving to college out of high school isn’t that difficult, because even if it is, then you do something about it and your choices don’t seem as big and scary. You’re still a kid and full of dreams and have a mostly clean slate, even if life has thrown you a heavy weight of troubles. There is lightness in being young and hopeful.
As I’m reaching my late twenties I’m realizing that age hits fast. This is when everything sets in, and you have a choice to either get sucked into obsessing about the right things to do and ask yourself millions of questions about how and what you should be doing. Or you can take things with the least amount of seriousness. Be simple and easy. Sounds simple and easy, but it feels like the hardest thing to put into action. Cancer at a young age, pressure to have babies younger because of increasing problems of conceiving, depression, panic, serious economic hardship. The mind and body doesn’t have it’s natural ability to accept life for what it is and keep on keeping on.
So deciding to apply to college for undergrad or gradschool at any point after, let’s say 23 or so, takes guts. It’s at this point that you’ve already set down some roots, whether it’s ties to a partner, family, or life itself. If you’re looking to escape, I guess it’s not an act of bravery, but I’m talking about situations like having a dream job in California and a long term partner, and then you decide one day that your true desire is to go to the East Coast for a two year program, and you go.
I relish in stories like this because it means that women are making choices based on their own desires, they are listening to their hearts and doing something about it. And they’ve been doing it for a long time. I’m reading Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios which is a collection of life stories, many about mujeres who were the first in their families to leave home and go to college, to not marry young or marry at all, to be the first woman of color in their program, to write books and get published, to get PhDs. But in all these cases, they had to make leaps even though they were looked at as improper, and now people might say it’s selfish.
It reminds me that adventure is possible, and only a decision away, if that’s what’s truly calling you. Always be listening.
These are a few blogs of women in academia who seemed to have taken big leaps and stay super fashionable while doing so.
1 comment:
Sounds great, I'll have to give that a read!
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