I have to wake up for class in a few hours

It probably won't surprise most of you to hear that I haven't actually enjoyed biology since at least 2011. What most of you don't know is that I tried to leave school. Twice, actually. I felt burnt out and uninterested, and even though I didn't have a plan, I knew that something had to change. Nothing did. I was told by my friends and family that I was making a bad decision, that I owed it to the world, or them, or maybe myself, to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity I had, because so many people never go to college, and those that leave rarely go back All of which have a degree of truth to them. And so I was smothered in good intentions and sent back out to school.

It didn't grow on me.

Changing majors, taking time off, whatever. Nothing made me excited, refreshed, or even really okay about going back there. All it did was make me tread water until I got to the point where it would be stupid not to finish. So here I am, with three classes left until I get a degree in a field I have no interest in with an abysmal GPA and no useful experience.

I try not to be upset with the people who convinced me to go back, because they meant well, and it was ultimately my decision. But sometimes I feel a little bit manipulated. They came to me when I was too stressed or depressed or scared to disagree. It feels like I became a vessel for their insecurities about the way they lived their lives. Like I did what I did to make up for the choices they made, and I'm still waiting for my life to become about me. I have all the love in the world for them, and I have no doubt that they feel the same way about me, but it seems like even though everyone cares, nobody understands.

One of the things I'm not looking forward to is having to reassure people that I'm not going to drop out after they read this. And I really can't blame them. Part of me has wanted to just get out and leave everything behind for a long time now. But I always regain my senses by the morning. Or I always wuss out by the morning, depending on how you look at it. Either way, I don't think it's right that I have to spend my time assuaging their fears while they continue to fail to ask what I actually want.

With all due respect, you have lived life one time more than I have, at most. You can't possibly have the depth of experience to tell somebody else what theirs should be like.