Anthropology may lead me to the Peace Corps

My entire life, my parents have told me I can do anything. At around six years old I noticed that all songs on the radio were about love of another person. I asked my mom why. She said that the love of another person was most people's idea of their life's goal. I looked at her disgusted and said that there should be songs about other things....oh how naive and sweet I was. As I grew into adolescence and then early adulthood, I was somewhat boy crazy. I read over some of my poetry from my teen years recently and had to laugh. It is very angst ridden and totally filled with all the unrequited love I could fit into those years. In my twenties, I had a string of very long, very unsuited relationships. It seems that lasted all the way up to my current age, 32, when I suddenly realized: I don't want to do this anymore. Who cares about love of another person? I want to DO something with my life! I want to travel and change the world!

Don't get me wrong. I've always had big outside goals, but the prospect of having a partner who would help me and pick me up when I fell and encourage me, that was just icing on the cake, and I searched for it, as if my dreams were secondary, as if they would come if only I found this great love. I give a big thumbs-down to old-school Disney movies and, consequently, my grandpa, of whom this blog post is eventually going to be revealed as the inspiration. I have distinct memories of my father saying to me at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, twenty, twenty two, and twenty five, "I wish you would stop focusing on relationships with guys and start focusing on the things that matter for you, like your goals." I would laugh and say, "I'm still focusing on my goals, dad." He would look at me slightly disgusted (this must be genetic) and I would feel like my dad, "just didn't get it."

Wasn't love the greatest goal?

It turns out, no, it is not, at least not for me. I had a boyfriend in my late twenties who, when he broke up with me, said, "you want this big life. You want to travel and make differences. I just want to get married and have kids." I was heartbroken. I wanted to get married and have kids! But he was right. The part about the traditional lifestyle and not traveling all over the world or changing small parts of it, it simply didn't appeal to me in the least. I kept modifying my wants and needs, still thinking that the right relationship would give me the stability and focus I needed to succeed in all the rest of my life. It's funny, though, that when one of my best friends said, "you should come work for me," because of my intense work ethic and ability to get things done, that my immediate response has usually been, "umm...maybe YOU should work for ME!" Because I couldn't imagine working at my friend's small business for one second. My dreams would have to be put on hold if I did that, and I simply didn't have time for that.

So now I'm questioning it all. Even love. And yesterday, when I was searching for a Peace Corps document in my inbox, I came across an email exchange I had with my grandfather seven years ago where he asks me why I won't just get married already. And I lose my flipping mind. I tell him that I love him, but I think he underestimates me, that I'm smart, and just because I'm female doesn't mean I can't accomplish something outside of getting married. I tell him that I may study anthropology in school and that may lead me to the Peace Corps (a revelation I forgot all about even though I DID end up studying anthropology and it DID lead me to the Peace Corps), and then I tell him, as a granddaughter who loves her grandfather, that I think he should be proud of me no matter what. I believe I was inspired to do this because when my father and I were cleaning out and packing my grandfather's house a few years earlier and my grandpa said something similar when I expressed my desire to be a writer, my dad, Mr. Passive who never ever talked back to my grandfather said sharply, "don't you dare tell my daughter what she can't do! Somebody has to! It might as well be her!" And you know what? My grandpa backed down. Both when my dad said that and when I called him out. I learned then that expressing one's feelings doesn't have to be dramatic or loud. It can simply be stated as in, "I feel like I would like my grandfather to be proud of me, even if I choose a different path than the norm," and it will be met with a far more mature response than if one were to scream, cry, or get offended and shut down completely.

My grandpa passed away a few years ago. It was rough, yet in 2014 I graduated from the University of Maryland with my Bachelors of Arts in Anthropology and in 2015, I was given an invitation to join the United States Peace Corps with a departure date in 2016. I'm just sorry my grandpa wasn't here to see it.