Two weeks ago I read and typed up an old letter I wrote to David when I was 18 years old. I was working at a dingy hotel at the time. I had moved to Alaska for the summer because I had heard that I could earn more money there than I could in Provo and I was trying to put myself through school. I really hated that job. The atmosphere was depressing and I had to wear a really uncomfortable uniform. In my letter I was expressing my distaste for my job. I wrote

"I'm not ashamed to say I am dreadfully homesick. Right now I could pack it all and come on home. But I feel trapped."

Trapped. Trapped at 18. I was single. I didn't have any children. I didn't have anyone depending on me. I didn't have a mortgage. I was just a kid who should have been able to choose what I wanted and then flake out (you know, like a teenager). So how is it that at 18 I felt so trapped and that I didn't have options? I think that I didn't want to disappoint myself by giving up because I had made the decision to go and work for the summer and I had paid for my round trip ticket. I had convinced my good friend to go with me too. I didn't want to give up or fail or let anyone down. I think because of this I felt trapped in my decisions but in looking back years later I can see all the options I really had and I wish I could have known that and believed that back then.

I was a serious youth, often taking on the role of a parent, and that seriousness perpetuated forward each year. In reading this old letter I recognized my voice because it is the one I still have. I have been feeling it especially about my current job at the hospital and I have felt it in other aspects of my life. Not wanting to disappoint. Not wanting to fail or let anyone down. Wanting to be reliable. Wanting to be dependable. Not liking change or taking a chance. Shouldering the burden and trying to carry it for others. Feeling upset and pinned into a corner. I recognize that voice because I have been feeling trapped - as if my choices aren't my own and I am simply acted upon. But if I can look back on my eighteen year old life and clearly see all the options that I really had back then (wishing I could have seen them then), I can imagine my fifty year old self looking back on my life right now and clearly seeing all the options I have. Then I can believe that I am not really trapped. And if this is so then I need to believe that I have choices and options and that I can find the courage to look at them and "... accept the things I cannot change, [have] courage to change the things I can, and [have] wisdom to know the difference." (Reinhold Niebuhr)