This time, I'm a bit more familiar with the territory and really am getting into my "blogger mind-set", or should I say, the expectation for "Lady Pam" brings slightly reflective mood upon me, snuggled in my comfy orange arm chair.
Going through my path of life, I found how strictly structured it was for the most part of it and how really limited were my choices, limited by the system I lived in, by obligations, by circumstances, etc...First, it was school. In the Russian version of it , I was like a perfectly cloned exemplar of the communist system. That was tough and demanding and to earn my respect among the peers and the teachers, I was taught to excel. I think, growing in a Jewish family, that has been and still is the main educational motive: "You have got to do the very best you can in what you are doing, otherwise, you won't "survive" the competition. So I was a good girl, good athlete and good student. I never suspected things could work any other way.
In an Israeli version of school, the absolute expectation from me would be to graduate with "gates open" to any desired university. My parents were too busy and preoccupied with basic survival and settling into a new life, to be bothered worrying about my social integration. I have also felt like I was left without any guiding hand and was expected to find my own right way, for that same reason. At only 12 years of age I felt that it is my duty not to overload my parents with my own problems and allow them to deal with "real" problems. They were also completely out of touch with Israeli educational system. In "crazy" teenage years that's not a simple task to deal with. It could basically go two opposite directions: to be either successful (proving that "whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger"), or disastrous. Unfortunately, I know too many great kids from similar backgrounds to mine, who just couldn't make it and they didn't... Surprisingly enough, I have found my way, against all odds...
Then it was the university, indeed...In a tender age of 17 I needed to decide about my profession and who I want to be when I grow up, while my peers were all getting ready to change their fancy branded clothes to military uniforms and for them it was the starting point of adulthood. I , on the other side, had to go study, "as long as my parents could provide for it!!!!" Irit, you first need to get a profession in life and the rest is "your own business"- was the motto at home. Being quite mature for my age, I already knew that I like being around people and helping them, I liked biology at school and hated computers and long hours of sitting on my bum. I also happened to have a next door neighbour, who was a nursing student at the time and judging by her stories, Nursing fitted me perfectly...AND...army wanted me to become a nurse! So here I was, making yet another step in my structured life path. I became a nursing student, the youngest one in my year. I was frequently questioned about my choice of profession, many were sceptical about my full understanding of it's scope of practise. But I am not a quitter!!! I have done it!!! After graduation, of course, came the army, which felt like a theatre of absurdities to me, but you gotta do what you gotta do! You gotta pay your dues to your country, which I did, with great dedication, working full time in a major military hospital in North of Israel for no money at all!
Mark and I have joined forces at only 21 years of age for me and 24 years of age for him. Carrying similar "luggage" to mine, he was way less conformist and since our first meeting shared with me the dream of "leaving it all behind" and starting a new life. Dreams aside and reality aside, it took him long 9 years, since we have met, to finish with all his obligations, including engineering degree and 6 years of army service.
"It's time to break free!"- he declared just two weeks before his demobilization. Only later in time, I realized how literally he meant every word of it...
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