People Problems

I’ve got people problems of the sort that through circumstances of my bizarre life path, I am the odd man out in my classes. Classes that make you do little intro posts in online discussions that read like Facebook statuses without the veil of friendship or pictures.

Yes. I am taking college classes over the summer. Why? Because I’m crazy and after the incident at my work study I figured I wasn’t aiming nearly high enough. YOLO and all that.

But back to the class.

I read their intros, all of them young, childless, single, and just plugging away at life, taking steps to get their degrees, or haven’t gotten them, blithely writing about being in the process of applying to medical schools and so on. And what am I? Single mother of two, clearly 10-15 years older, trying to get a degree, doing nothing fun and feeling like my life just hit one big tar pit.

I’m only going to get one chance to make something of myself, and after my kids grow up and leave the nest, it’s going to be on me to make a life for myself of some sort. Frankly I want it to be a lot more fun and financially stable than my first three decades have been. It is just unfortunate that it has taken me twenty years to figure things out.
My disconnect with my classmates is simultaneously self-imposed and unavoidable. I cannot commiserate on their experience and the life I lead is foreign and off-putting. which leaves me with a dilemma at the beginning of every single course this summer: what do I reveal about myself to fulfill the requirements of the class intro? It is a real struggle for me.

There is still a large part of me that feels like it hasn’t grown up and like I don’t even know what I want to be, which when juxtaposed with these determined and focused younger people, I feel like I’m just a big loser and what I am doing is pointless. It’s no wonder I make no friends in these classes, and talk as little as possible. Part of me sits in the class with these people and is just green with envy, and the rest is filled with regret over lost time, with no room left to be friendly.