I am a junior in college. I currently work at a fast food restaurant. I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

See but for most people that's the norm, right? Getting thrown into college and the world expecting you to know exactly what you want to do for the rest of eternity is totes the norm, right?

Sure.

However, I come from an uppity suburban utopia where everyone drives a Lexus, has a summer home somewhere, and is either attending a great school or the parent of a child attending a great school. I happen to be neither. I'm not saying the schools I have attended haven't been fun and worthwhile, but they ain't no University of Chicago, which surprisingly is closer to the norm than some small, private liberal arts school: that's my norm.

I've never felt ashamed of my life, my schooling (even if I'm going somewhere that was never my first choice), or my lifestyle. That is, until recently. A girl I had known since middle school came through the drive thru one morning, very early, and we got to talking when I brought her food out to her. I asked why she was out so early, and she said it was because she was so jet-lagged from having just returned from China, where she'd spend the past few months, doing an internship through her school. She was sweet, we exchanged a few words, and she was off. As I walked back inside, I was suddenly very aware that I had never explained to her what I was doing with my life. For all she knew, since high school I had done nothing but get a job as an employee at a McDonalds. She didn't know if I was in college or if I was doing anything else worthwhile in my life. And in that moment, I was so self-conscious of what this girl, who I was never particularly close with, thought of me that I was genuinely embarrassed for the first time in forever.

I realized that I was not living up to the expectations that seemed to be "the norm" for my city. I was not living up to the expectations that I had set for myself, either. I had expected to know where I was going in my life by the time that I was 20; I had expected to be acing college and making my parents proud; I had expected internships; I had expected to be working in my field by this point in my academic career. I had expected so much more from myself and from my life by this point that in that moment, that incredible moment of doubt and shame, I was humiliated. I was comparing my life and my accomplishments to this girl, this sweet and obtuse girl, who was blessed with opportunity, and I was finding myself lacking.

Because I was not living up to these predisposed expectations, I was a failure. Because I was working over the summer, like so many college students do, in a fast food restaurant, making the money to pay for my education, and not out somewhere exploring the world on a school paid trip, I was a disappointment. In my mind, in that moment, I was nothing more than a wash up, a poor unfortunate soul left working a minimum wage job to make ends meet, a cliche of a high school drop out portrayed in so many movies. Nothing could make me feel like I wasn't letting the world, including myself, down.

And yet, I was so far from failing. I was working a full-time job, one that I, at one point, had been working as a manager. I was moving on from the community college of my Associates Degree to a private school in my hometown, a prestigious albeit small school. I was building a relationship with my boyfriend, building for our future together by helping him move into his own place. In every sense of the word, I was succeeding. I was moving forward in life with or without a plan, with or without a trip to China, with or without the big city and the cliche self-discoveries. I was moving on with my life whether I was ready to or not.

So maybe I didn't live up to every expectation that my high school, my family, or I made for myself. I guess I just need to learn to be happy for everyone else's achievements and stop comparing them to my own. Because I have done things worthwhile in my life: little, irrational, stupid things, but they're important and life-altering to me.

So I'm still a junior in college. Still working at that fast food restaurant. And I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. And that's okay.

What else did I expect?