Five years ago I was a seventeen-year-old mess. I was more confident than I should have been, thought I was funnier than I actually was, and committed to procrastination like it was a serious relationship.
At twenty-two not much has changed.
This month marks the five-year anniversary of my humble, sometimes ridiculous, all times open-hearted, honest little blog. Memoirs Of A Rat has grown up with me through the most incredible years of my life. It saw my senior year of high school, my year abroad in Italy, my first years in college, my first serious relationship, and now it continues to accompany me through yet another study abroad and more adventures through the world.
Five years ago I wrote a draft for one of my earliest blog posts. It was entitled my ‘5 Year List’. For reasons I cannot remember I never posted this list. I thought now would be the perfect time to share and respond to it:
1. Graduate from high school
I am happy to say I accomplished this first goal relatively easily.
2. Study abroad in Italy for a year
This, too, is one of my proudest accomplishments. I lived, I learned, and I grew in Italy. And I will be forever grateful.
3. Get my book published
While I don’t think I realised how ambitious this goal was, I admire my seventeen-year old devotion.
4. Get a job? (the question mark means it's something I know I should do, but probably won’t)
Again, at seventeen I thought I was witty. Happily, I have worked in two incredible internships in the last few years, volunteered in a Psychology lab on my university campus, and assisted other’s in their research tasks. I have gained invaluable experience and unbelievable clarity of my own through these jobs I once thought I may not want to do.
5. Get my first car (a Ford Ranger XLT please)
6. Learn how to take care of my car, I’m talking grease monkey strip down
7. Go shooting again
8. Learn how to take a gun apart and put it back together
I’m not sure why I thought cars and guns were so important to me back then, but I am willing to admit it was probably more for the image I wanted to portray than my actual interests. I can drive (a manual truck nonetheless),but I cannot maintain my car on my own. I have shot a gun, but only in a controlled situation, and I have not had any burning desire to pick one up since.
9. Learn some sort of wicked self defence, like walking-down-a-dark-alley-some-guy-jumps-me-from-behind-and-ends-up-regretting-it-big-time self defence
While I may not have learned ‘wicked self defence’, I can take care of myself. I’ve lived on my own for the last three or four years. I cook my own meals, I clean my own apartment, I manage my own expenses. I don’t need to know jujitsu to know what it takes to survive in this world, and basic but important skills like these are necessary. More importantly, I can defend myself from the world. I have strong opinions to the point of being stubborn, and I believe a woman can and should pay just as much importance to her mind as her physical strength. I am small, but I am powerful in my own way, I am in control of my self and my life. But I am not naïve.
10. Suddenly come across lots of money (I am not picky as to how this happens, just how much money I happen upon)
I am almost disappointed that this seemed so important to me at that time. I am incredibly fortunate and always have been in my family’s support of me. I will, one day, earn a living and be financially secure and comfortable. That’s all I need.
11. Go to Australia
Happily, I have just concluded one semester living and studying in Sydney Australia. I am encouraged by my own ability to work towards my goals, however trivial some of them may have been, and make my own dreams come true. I’ve never sit back and wait for things to come to me, I work hard and I achieve my goals. I am proud of that.
12. Pay my parents back for lots of things and buy my sister a very nice dress
One day, I will do both of these and more. Though no material goods could ever repay my family for their unwavering support and encouragement of me.
13. Go to college
I’m surprised at myself that a college education fell so low on my list – below cars and guns as a seventeen-year-old girl! However, I am three years into my four-year undergraduate program, with aspirations to continue my higher education. I could not be happier with my love for the studies I have chosen.
The last five years have been, undoubtedly, the most important years of my life. But I am no longer that miserable seventeen-year-old girl.
I turned eighteen and graduated from high school. I turned nineteen and lived in Italy. I turned twenty and found love. I turned twenty-one and lost love, but managed to find myself along the way. I turned twenty-two in Thailand.
No, I am far from who I was five years ago. And this blog has grown and matured with me from a pitiful attempt at comedy and a cry for attention, to a sharing of my life and my travels. This space is no longer the world as I want it to be, this is the world as I see it, as I choose to make it every day. This is no longer Memoirs of a silly young rat, this is a tour of my world, my lessons in life and learning: TaraTour.
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