I Can't Make Decisions

Union of Souls by Max Švabinský,
which I like because that guy looks
like me having a freak-out at 2 AM

I'm seventeen years old. I'm in my senior year of high school. Recently, I've been asked to make some really big decisions, and I find myself floating in this weird phase of life where I'm too young to be an adult and too old to be a kid.

Legally, I can't buy alcohol, vote, or drive past midnight. Without parental consent, I can't enlist in the military, get married, or get another ear piercing. Yet somehow I'm being asked to choose where I want to go to college and what career path I want to spend the rest of my life trapped in. 

Now, I know full well that "you can change your major if you don't like it" and "you have plenty of time, you don't have to decide yet," but let's be real. At the ripe young age of seventeen, it is expected that I know roughly what I want to do for the rest of my life, even if I do end up changing my mind later. 

Here's the issue. I don't know what I want to do with my life. I have no idea what I want to do. I don't even know what I want for lunch most days, let alone where I want to go to college and what I want to do after college. I am expected to know these things and make these decisions, and I am totally unprepared. 

The other half of the issue is this: while I'm expected to be old enough to make adult decisions, I'm also not treated like I'm old enough to make adult decisions. I'm applying to Auburn not because I want to go there, but because my mom said I should. (Sorry to all the college admissions offices that I regret giving a link to this blog.) The same goes for Emory. And this doesn't just go for college applications.

In every decision I've had to make recently, my parents' answer has been something along the lines of "you're allowed to make your own choices and do what you want, but also we're going to look at you disapprovingly if you do that." Alternatively, I get the speech of "you can do what you want, but here are all the reasons why you shouldn't." When I encounter a decision, I seek their advice, but instead of giving it openly, there's this awkward dance around it where they can't seem to decide whether they want to withhold their input. 

I'm stuck in this endless loop where I ask for advice, my parents give it, and then they tell me to disregard it. If I actually do disregard it, they're upset that I didn't listen and do what they wanted. If I take it into account, they seem upset that I didn't make an independent decision. And if I don't ask for advice in the first place, then I'm ignoring them and keeping things hidden. 

My dad told me the other day that I'm getting to the age where I'm allowed to do what I want, but he isn't always going to approve of that. So now I've spent my whole life being expected to please people, especially my parents, and suddenly I'm being told that actually I don't have to do that, but everyone will be mad at me if I don't. 

It's just a really weird place to be in. When I'm asked to make a decision, I don't know what I want, and when I do know what I want, I'm asked to do what my parents want. While I'm hypothetically given a lot of choices and freedom, there's also immense pressure towards whatever choice my parents want me to go with, and it feels like I can't actually make any decisions for myself without their approval. 

If I'm being honest, I don't have a solution. I'm mostly just trying to swim through it right now, but I find myself wondering how long this phase of life is going to last. Am I free to do what I want when I graduate in May? Or when I move out in August? Or is this something that's going to follow me until I'm 40 years old? I have no way of knowing, and no idea what to do about it right now. This is a terrible note to end on, but I truly just don't like this phase, and I'm about ready for it to be over with.

"Paul felt life changing around him. The conditions of youth were gone." -- D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers