Who doesn't want to be me?

Well, I've been thinking about this the last few days, and honestly, what else is a blog for, except rambling on about inconsequential ideas in the hopes of seeming intelligent, or at least figuring out what's going on in your own head. Now that I've managed to sound pretentious for the day (I find it ironic that pretentious really sounds quite pretentious itself) I'm going to talk about something I find odd about the human psyche. Lately I've been thinking about graduation, obviously, and really been into planning my time in Chile, and just figuring out how I'm going to spend my time before med school. Nearly all of my closest friends really don't have any idea what they're doing after graduation. Surprisingly, many of them are taking a year off, but they have no idea what they're doing with that time. They speak of getting jobs, but no one has anything set or has really even started looking. This drives me INSANE. I can't handle the fact that not only do people not have their next year planned out, but they seem relatively calm about having no idea where their life is going!

Now, I'm not really one of those people who heavily plans the next ten years-I plan on becoming a surgeon, but if I come back from my year off and want to do something different, that's all right with me-but I HAVE to have tomorrow planned, and at any transition, I want to know exactly where I'm going. Thus, the reason I've had my year off planned for about a year and a half now. Now, in all honesty, my friends don't need to be as crazy as I am. They can do whatever they want, and I'm sure they will do amazing things, unplanned and all, because they're some pretty cool people. What really interests me is that it bothers me so much. I spent an hour-a full hour!-yesterday looking at every senior I know, wether here, or from high school, or even middle school, trying to figure out what they were doing, if people had plans, where people were ending up. I found ONE person who seemed to have any idea. Now, the next plausible question is why would this bother me? And after many minutes of lying on my couch (it's actually my bed, I don't have a couch) I think I've found the answer.

When I was in middle school, well, let's just say I didn't have a great social life, and it wasn't the best years of my life. I had a best friend who would make drawings and pretend the most outlandish things with me. We would often be designers in Paris, where we had multiple boyfriends, fabulous homes, and were completely independent. The most important part was that we had escaped from the small midwestern town we were living in. Those dreams were one of the few things that really got me through my middle school years. And I feel to a certain extent I've accomplished it. Yes, the midwest sucked me in during med school, but I can then move wherever I want, which will probably be one of the C states. No, I didn't choose based on the letter, it's a coincidence. This friend of mine however, began dating a guy much older than herself, got engaged at graduation, married at 19 and is currently pregnant. I moved away right when this all took place, so while I'm sure she is happy and is living out a more mature dream, I was quite upset when all this happened. We were supposed to escape together! If she happens to read this, I want her to know I am sooo happy for her, and I know she has a great guy and is about to start a beautiful family. However, she also changed dreams, something I never did. I suppose I felt a little left behind, or like maybe my dream was no longer valuable. Perhaps this is why I want my friends to have their lives set, so they don't change their dreams after I'm no longer around to share the experience. Or maybe I'm just a control freak. Either way, I think it's important I learn just as my dreams have changed, so will others, and just because I'm not part of the process doesn't mean they love me any less.