That call from my boss was also quite the literal wake-up call.

Up until graduation, I was in this fleeting area of total freedom, both on the professional, and personal levels. I suppose that comes with the territory of teenagehood. Free from most concerns, sheltered by your status as somebody-else’s-responsibility. And my mother and father were great at being responsible for me.

I stayed at home with them because I wanted to be there for my siblings, I told myself. Because I still wanted to be close to my parents.

But now I wonder. How much of that was me not ready to fly away from the nest?

I’m stepping into a world that goes beyond the close unity of my family. I need to get out, accept that there are other people apart from what I know, and they’ll have an influence on me and my life, too.

Now’s also the time to ask questions I thought didn’t matter that much before. As I enter a dance of old traditions as an adult, I can see how I’m a part of a grander scheme. Generations come and passed before me whose power and lives still affect mine in ways I barely grasp. It gets overbearing, and I find myself looking for comfort in this only link with the past that I have, this tether to what I don’t know, this one person who’s seen it all and can help me understand. Naomi.

Traditions, work, and my great-grandmother, as many doors that I hope, will lead me to find what, exactly, is my role in this world.