My Aunt and favourite cousin from Melbourne came over to little ole Perth last week to visit my family - I probably haven't seen them for over 10 years!
What makes my cousin, Dalena, the best of the bunch is probably due to our similar upbringing, dealing with the generation gaps, culture differences of living in a Western world and just living with slightly cooky parents. She graduated with Honours in a Bachelor of Psychology and then followed her dreams to escape from a sheltered family and experience the real world by being a flight attendant, much to the dismay of the family. These days, her family is fairly proud of the woman she has grown to be - she is elegant, worldly and socially eloquent. There will always be discrepancies of opinions in a family like ours and what we do might not always be good enough for the elders but the most important thing at the end of the day is your own personal happiness, which in some cases may indirectly cause others grief.
Her life is similar to mine - I didn't follow the path than my parent traced out for me to live. A path which they thought would be the only road to being a "success", a word that they give no room for interpretation. I was to be a pharmacist which to me now is pretty much a high paying (relative to retail pay - $45/p = pfft) retail pleb who knows the ins and outs of drugs however rarely gets to use such awesome knowledge - unless you own your own shop (in which you end up being a business person), work as a real chemist in a biological lab (fuckn respect yo) or even work in a hospital, working as a pharmacist in a pharmacy becomes a retail job with perhaps (if you are lucky/have the mad skills) lame middle management powers which ends up micro managed by the owner. Yes, by now you probably have realised that I hold some ill will towards the thought of being a pharmacist, yet at one point in my life, I was more than happy to try to conform. I didn't make the marks though (embaressing trumpet horn blows). I even repeated year 12 to try and get in - once again. Neg. (I hate to admit it, but I was a little boy-crazy at the time >_<) So I defaulted my way into Business School - trying to make out to friends and family that it was what I truly wanted to do (gee, I was real lame in the day. Seriously)
Even once I got into uni, I was still unsure what to do - once again, taking my parents advice I took the safe path and decided on majoring in Professional Accounting and Finance (dry as sand paper kids, dry as sand paper!). After the first year, I hated it so I changed major (once again, much to my parents dismay) to Marketing, Management and Mass Communications. So here I am, doing the classes that I actually like. As much as I appreciate my parents for their advice on the more safe approach to life to ensure I have security, I think I'm ok. Their main worries were always "Will she get a job" or "What kind of job will she even have?" - which I admit, when it comes to the business world, job titles are vague and don't explain well.
These days I am still working on completing my degree (which is taking longer than it should after I changed my majors GRRrr), have a part-time job as a marketing co-ordinator and also the the TL of the junior finance team in a company I have fallen head over heels for, still working at the photolab because I can't bring myself to leave spending days photoshopping, printing photos and speaking to customers about anything photography. I participate in the occasional photo exhibition and am the official photographer for a cafe I have come to call my second home.
There was a point where my parents were completely ashamed of me - I was sort of disappointed too, but too proud to admit it. I think things are starting to change. When my relatives were here, I think they brought some reality to my olds. That just because they don't understand, it shouldn't be completely dismissed. That you spend your weary life trying to change a person but all you will manage to do is break their soul. I think that for once, I'm a little proud of where I am in terms of life, career and as a person. And I think my parents might as well :)
