jumbled thoughts & unanswered questions.

environment.

do people choose their environment because of their personality or does their environment change/create their personality? the more time i spend in europe, the more i find myself inclined to that way of life. and it makes me wonder, have i always wanted to live in that environment, but didn't know it existed? or has my personality changed because of the time i have spent there and now i want that environment? if i had never visited europe, would i want to live in utah suburbs in a house with a fence and yard? what made me long for new york at such a young age? tv? is this one of those "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" moments? i don't necessarily think it's wrong to want to leave utah and live in a city, but at the same time there's something inside me that thinks maybe it is wrong because all of the righteous people seem to want that.

fitting into family.

over the past couple months since i returned home from europe these questions have been weighing on my mind. i wonder about what i really want--what i want my life to look like. as i look around my family members i feel very different from them. they are all in different places in their lives which changes what matters most to them. i feel selfish in comparison to those of my sisters with children, but i'm not in that place. i feel alone in comparison to those of my sisters with husbands, but i'm not in that place. vacations are different. dinners are different. family time is different. planning is different. holidays are different. and none of it is bad, but everything feels like it's changing because everyone in the family is transitioning except for me. and it makes me think...it makes me think more about what i want. which is good. but also feels selfish.
 
i am not them and they are not me. this is obvious. but the other night i played games with my mom and two of my sisters while 2 brother in laws and a cousin in law all played video games together and it made me realize... wow, all of the guys in our family have very similar personalities/interests. and then i thought about the guys i have dated recently and realized... wow, none of them have really been like them. hmmm... do i want to marry someone like them? not necessarily. would any of the guys i dated fit into this family and mesh with these guys? not necessarily. am i ok with that? maybe. what would that be like? if i had married someone 10 years ago, i bet they would've been like the guys in my family. so what does that mean? does that mean my personality has changed? or i've come to know myself and what i want better? probably.

conclusion.

in conclusion, to a weird blob of thoughts, just like everyone (with their different personalities, experiences and preferred environments) make them better suited to one job over another, i believe the same factors make one better suited for an environment over another. at different stages in our lives maybe we are willing to make sacrifices. a father needing to provide for his family is more willing to work at a minimum wage job than a single man looking for a job right out of college. a wife and mother is more willing to sacrifice where she lives to be where her husband has a job than a single woman. we all want different things. sometimes we feel really different because several people around us have similar personalities or have made similar sacrifices, but that doesn't mean we're wrong. we're just different. and different is good, right?