I am just not happy.

Now I’m really not one to complain. I have parents who love and support me, a roof over my head, good friends and an education. Many people don’t have all of those things. So why am I unhappy? Because I’m broke, unemployed, I live away from my good friends, my boyfriend believes we’re incompatible, my mom’s husband is a psychopath and I live in boring excuse of a metropolis called the Silicon Valley.  On top of that, I don’t know what to do with my life. I know… Many people are in these situations but some people have lived this way their entire life. I gave up my mediocre life in Los Angeles for this boring excuse for a lifestyle for someone in their mid-twenties.

These next few months are going to be eventful. Next week I find out if my boyfriend is transferred back to the United States. Over the course of the next couple weeks I will take a GMAT class and finally take the GMAT. Next is San Diego for 4 days (where I can finally get a tinge of my old life back). Then comes Christmas and New Years (in which I have no plans). The following weeks after Christmas are applications to B-Schools. Finally things slow down around mid-January and I finally get to dedicate all my time looking for work. This is the life of an unemployed professional in her mid-twenties.

So, my situation is not that unexciting of a lifestyle, right? Why am I still so unhappy even after all these fun activities my future has in store? One, is the realization that I don’t know which direction in life I want to go. Two, is that if my boyfriend transfers back to the US, he will be located in San Jose. I absolutely hate living in San Jose. Three, after experiencing what a normal, functional, competent family is like; I am extremely disappointed in my family. And lastly, four, my boyfriend and I are on an ‘emotional break’. What does that really mean? Is it ok to see other people? How do two people who still care about each other communicate while on an emotional break?

While I’m at it, I may as well expand on my reasons for being unhappy. Let’s start with the realization that I don’t know which direction in life I want to go. Two facts: 1. I absolutely love learning about the environment. 2. I am a really good project manager. These two fields can obviously be combined, but there are so many combinations to choose from. Masters in GIS or Environmental Studies or Urban Planning or Landscape Architecture or Forestry Management + MBA = $150,000 debt. Or should I just do a masters ($50,000)? Or just an MBA ($100,000)? Do I need an MBA? What am I going to do with an MBA if I don’t have a clear path? Gah!

The second reason for unhappiness is being stuck in San Jose if my boyfriend ends up being transferred back to the US. I absolutely hate it here. I thought the urban life was not for me, but it is. If not the urban life, I need some excitement. The beach, the outdoors, something! I hate the suburbs. I hate that there’s not much to do here but shop and that I have to drive at least 20 miles to get to something fun or classy. I must admit, my heart is still in SoCal. I miss the weather, the beach, the people, the variety, the excitement of being in/near the entertainment capital. Now, I may not be stuck here if, say, I found a job in the city, or if my boyfriend and I broke up. If we broke up, I’d find a way to get back to SoCal for sure.

Next are my issues with my family.  Before I moved to LA, I thought my family was pretty close and loving. My mom and dad supported me in whatever I chose to do. We always got together for the holidays. We did some fun family stuff. After I returned I realized how completely dysfunctional my family is. The families of the friends I’ve made in LA are much more ambitious, motivating and higher reaching than my own. Parents help and encourage their kids to have high goals and standards for their lives. Parents finance grad school application fees, prep course costs, heck, even therapy sessions. They have college degrees and actually had a career in their field. They go on international vacations. A few words to describe my family: lazy and poor, but not completely in the most negative senses of those words. Lazy in that the people in my family don’t have the desire to put out the effort to improve their lives, meaning, they take what they can get. A commonly used phrase in my family is, ‘life is hard’. It is not realistic to have a high expectation of your life and career. Why? Because we are all the product of poor families. A high expectation of one’s life is not an option for the poor. Poor families don’t know how to improve their lives. They don’t have the direction, motivation and encouragement as do those families at the other end of the spectrum. Therefore, poor parents don’t provide their children with those benefits either.

Lastly, number four, my boyfriend and I are on a ‘emotional break’. I completely understand why we are on this break. We are different people from different places and are both at different places in our lives. He is a middle class San Diegan, from a classy, educated family, with a PhD in Material Science Engineering. I grew up in lower class East Side San Jose, from a poor, generally uneducated family, with a Bachelors Degree in Geography. Of course, in fairytales, this combination is totally possible, but that’s why it’s a fairytale. The fact is, that although we are only two years apart and we are both educated, there are huge differences between our lifestyles. I still possess habits from my ghetto upbringing that I have yet to realize and change. The changes I’m making in myself are changes he never has to make or even think of because he was raised by these standards. In result, I need my space to improve, and he needs his space to not put up with my ghettoness while I improve. On top of that, we are trying to sustain a long distance relationship. Of the two years we’ve been together, nine months of it has been spent apart. You would think that with that much experience we’d be pretty good at it, but that’s not the case here. I am pretty good at long distance, but he is not. He can’t really be blamed for that either. Long distance relationships are tough. Also, our future goals vary slightly. Although we both have the same end goal of having a nice place in a nice urban area, with a couple kids and more than decent salaries, neither of us are anywhere close to entertaining that type of lifestyle. We both still want to live the life of someone who is in his mid/late twenties. Friends, parties, casual dates, travels, pubs, etc. That is not entirely possible when you’re in a couple. In the end, this break is much needed. It gives me time to improve and it gives him time to concentrate on himself and his career. But what does a break mean in terms of seeing other people? I must admit, there are people out there who I might be interested in, but every time I think of possibly hooking up, dating or even hanging out with these people, I miss my boyfriend terribly and I feel extremely guilty. That can be translated as being extremely faithful and even as almost sure about whom I want to be with. But it can also be translated as being too attached and not able to move on.

In the end, there is no doubt that I am at a complicated place in my life. I will eventually figure it out, but for now, it took a lot off my chest after I wrote this out and sorted out my feelings.

My life has been turned upside down.

I know there are things that are much worse than what I'm going through but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be bothered by this. This is what's going on:

Mid-July I found out that my hours at work will be reduced from 40 hours a week to 16 hours a week beginning August 1. This means that I no longer can afford to live in Los Angeles. I give my month's notice to my roommate and I move back to the Bay Area August 15th. The reason this sucks is because I love my life in LA. I love the neighborhood I live in, the friendships I made, the weather and all the options of things to do in LA. These things are all immediate pleasures. Getting my hours reduced means I have more time to hang out with my boyfriend before he leaves the country, work from home and study for the GMAT and GRE. The latter option is the better option.

Unfortunately one of the consequences of moving back to the Bay Area means dealing with my family. This past year I have spent a lot of time with Mike's family and have gotten used to their standards. My family, I think I can safely say, is pretty dysfunctional and not normal in any way. I love them so much, but this is how I feel right now and I can't help but feel this way. Since I've moved to LA, I've spent 90% of my time with people with fairly high ambition, who more or less think critically about their actions and how they come off, who aren't lazy... my family is the opposite of that. Most of my family is ok with doing the least amount of effort in exchange for a hint less than mediocre results, they accept that life is difficult and that they just have to deal with it, they are extremely lazy when it comes to social skills, they believe everything good happens because of good luck. The best thing about them is that they're good-hearted people. But that doesn't make it right or better. I cannot stand living at home. Some things that happened that made me flip out: My dad during dinner used his fingers to get his share of the fish that we were all sharing, my cousin didn't use caution when opening the door and our dog ran out (she doesn't return when called) and my cousin's gf exclaims at everything I say like it's the most interesting thing I have ever said (example: "What are your plans for tomorrow?" "We're going to golf." "Wow! I didn't KNOW that! That's so cool!" I think, 'WTF, no shit you didn't know that, I just fucking told you'.) I have yet to visit my mom at her house. I think I'm going to be depressed within a month. The only perk I can see from this is knowing that I'm going to try my best to either get out of this situation and hopefully learn to live with it.

The second thing that is stressing me out is that my boyfriend of a year and a half is moving to Taiwan for a job in less than one week. He will be living there indefinitely... meaning either he loves his job and he's going to live there or that he hates his job and that he'll move back to the states as soon as he gets a job offer. What's terrible about this situation is that we love each other so much but we argue at least once a week. We both have characteristics about ourselves  that we need to improve but can't because of time, innate characteristics or that we're around each other so much that we can't change. It can be seen as a blessing that we're taking this time apart but it can also mean that next Friday could be the last time I ever see him. I have a bit of confidence though, one of our problems is that I keep a lot of thoughts to myself but having a physical barrier between us can help in that I tell him more of what's on my mind.

As depressed I am about this, i see my turmoil of thoughts as a sign that I need my space to sort out my life. I'm at this turning point in life where I got a glimpse of the type of life I want to lead and I'm at like 80% capable of living it. There are just a few mannerisms that need to change, obstacles I need to cross, mental growth and strength and an increase in confidence, and I will be there.