Getting My Priorities Straight in the Middle of the Ocean

I’m a woman of obligation. I am a woman of should.

I have spent most of my life doing what was expected. When I was 19, I got a job at a summer camp in the Poconos that would have given me a chance to drive across the country with people I barely knew. I was studying to be a teacher and I could not have found a more fitting summer job. I didn’t go. I had other “obligations.” I ended up spending a summer in the hell that is known as working retail at the mall.

I never traveled as a teacher, even though I had a chance to study Spanish in Costa Rica as part of an immersion program. But what would I do with my apartment? Instead, I took classes toward my Masters that I never finished so I could earn credits. I worked crappy jobs to save money to pay for the classes that were supposed to bring me more money. It never balanced.

I am driven by a horrible fear of letting people down because I did what I want instead of what is expected. So, I sit with a mountain of regret on most days.

My dad and I did not speak for a year and a half, from July of 2016 to November of 2017. It was stupid. We both know it. We are one and the same. Hot headed and stubborn and prideful and it…