Traveling the Unwanted Path - A Realistic Life Update

I've been feeling restless and down in the dumps lately. It's not that there's nothing around for me to do. There's plenty. The problem is none of that has been keeping my interest long enough. On top of that I've been feeling really left behind in life.

Right now, I'm not taking classes. I'm so close to finishing my Bachelor's degree but I can't do anything until more funds become available. So, I'm working a part-time job. This path is NOT the way I wanted to go in life. In fact, when I was in classes, I hoped and prayed that I wouldn't end up on this path. This unwanted journey has left me feeling angry, disappointed, feeling defeated and left behind.

In America you graduate from high school and go straight to college. You graduate in 4 years with a bachelors then go to grad school. At some point in this time period you have your own car, travel abroad, move out and live on your own or with roommates, meet the people you will call your "squad", start dating your future spouse and get some sort of Graduate degree in another 2-4 years (longer if you're going for a professional degree). After you're done with school, you get a good full-time job to pay off all of those loans and get married (for those who want to get married). That's the ideal order of events. 

However, we all know that life doesn't always play out that way. It certainly hasn't for me. It's taking me WAAAYY longer than 4 years just to get my undergrad degree. I have yet to travel abroad. I'm still relying on my parents vehicle for transportation. The living on my own thing was short lived. Squad? What squad? Do books count? I'm still single and convinced that my future husband must have fallen asleep or gotten lost on his way to find me. Talk about feeling unaccomplished and anxious to fulfill a life goal. And seeing/hearing other people I know my age and younger around me fulfilling all of these goals doesn't help. (Sometimes you have to stop staring at Facebook and go pick up a book instead.) 

My walk with God has hit a low point. To combat the struggle, I've started a devotional through YouVersion called "Streams in the Desert". I've heard it before and I've heard a lot of good things about it. So far the main message that I keep encountering from God is the same message that I got at IVF Chapter Camp. "Wait. Just Trust Me. Wait. Just Trust Me. Wait. Just Trust Me." I wish I could say that those words are giving me peace and encouragement but they aren't. Getting that same message and nothing else day after day has started to annoy me a little. Is it something I need to hear? Most likely yes. Sure, I can always end the devotional but as an avid reader one of my pet peeves is having to leave something as DNF (did not finish). Most likely, I'll still see it through to the end.

I have my writing and books though. I've finished 2 books this past week and started a third. I've been learning more about some characters in a particular writing project of mine. And I have hopes of going to writing events/seminars sometime in the fall. Hmmm... Now that I think about it, I can pick a project, outline it for NaNoWriMo this year. *Gears turning* In case you didn't know, National Novel Writing Month is like an ultramarathon for writers.

That's where I'm at now. My family keeps telling me not to give up (no matter how tempting it may be) and that things will get better. Can it be worse? Yeah. It's easy for someone on the outside to say that I should just smile and be happy because things aren't worse. To that I reply that it's still my struggle, it hurts and it still sucks. (There's more going on with me but this is as much as I'm going to share.) I long for the day when I can honestly say to someone that life for me is going great. But today's not the day.