Don't rush me to be me!

By CECILIA TUCKER

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 7, 2000

Second of two parts.

I want to be ME in whatever I do. I want to be happy in my life choices. I want to make money and have some freedom with my time and in my work. I want to know that whatever I choose now, no one, including myself, will decide I have to do it for the rest of my life! Please don't pressure me to feel this is a once-and-for-all final decision. I feel like I am drowning as I hear myself and others tell me to decide my career before I go to college. It is all I can handle right now to think about choosing a college and prepare to leave home and be on my own for the first time.

My plate seems very full without the added helping of what I have to do for the rest of my life. I am already getting the brochures from colleges and universities pressuring me to select the right school. I feel uptight about this selection because I believe a lot of my future could be affected by this four- to five-year decision I make now. People make a lot of their life contacts from college, including potential marriage partners. What if I pick the wrong place and then end up with the wrong person and yet the school had the "right" major for me to pursue the career of my choice? Great! Maybe in addition to deciding a major, it's important for me to look at the school, and the kinds of people who attend, before I select one.

Maybe I need to be thinking about how I am going to handle leaving home for the first time and being on my own. This is a very exciting time for me, but I have to admit that part of me is very scared. I don't want anyone to know how scared I am, but that doesn't change the fact that I am scared. Usually when asked about leaving home, I deny that I am frightened by this new opportunity. I have been waiting and talking about this time in my life for years, but now that it is here and I'm really leaving home, I'm not so sure! I knew this time would come, but it always seemed so far away. Here I am now, on the verge of leaving the only home I have ever known, and people seem to be more concerned about my major than about how I am going to adjust without my family.

I know I'll be okay, but I want to say, "Hey, listen to me! Let's take this one step at a time." I know I have to decide on a school with varied academic options, but that's not only what going to college is about. I thought you all were the adults, so why am I having to tell you this? All my life you have told me to be careful with whom I hang out. Why aren't you concerned about that now? I hear you being more concerned about whether or not this place will prepare me for the career of my choice! But I don't know for sure because I'm not sure what that career will be. I am sure that soon I will leave home and that I want to belong and fit in wherever I go. I know you care about this, too, but I haven't heard you say it that much.

I am looking forward to being on my own. What I need most now is to know that you think my major isn't the most important thing about my future. I am remembering that in kindergarten everyone thought it was so cute that I wanted to be this or that. Everyone then would say, "Oh, don't worry about that now. You have plenty of time to decide." They always said I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up.

You know, that was only 13 years or so ago. I bet in the next 13 years I will finally get a clue as to what I want to do, but for now I need to figure out some other things, too. I think it would be great if the adults in my life could say those things to me now. I will put the pressure on myself soon enough to figure out a way to make a living. I want to be happy with me; happy not just with what I do but with who I am! What major and which school will best prepare me for this?

IT! (Private thoughts of the Indomitable Teen) is written by Cecilia Tucker, a licensed marriage and family therapist at the Counseling Center for New Direction in Seminole. Tucker, who has been in counseling practice since 1979, writes this column under the guidance of a panel of teenage advisers, who approve the topics and offer their insights (in exchange for pizza). You may write her c/o: IT!, X-Press, the St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail Floridian@sptimes.com.

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