Yes, yes, I KNOW. That's life. I actually do understand that. In spite of all my forward planning, and all my contingency plans, it didn't work out how I wanted it to. Ok fine. It's all fine. So I'm not going to have the performing career I wanted. So instead of being engaged with plans for a family I'm single. So I got a cat not a dog. So I'm still dirt broke. So I'm working 5 jobs that are apparently leading to nowhere. So I haven't left the country since 2009. It's all good, it's just different. But the reason I get so depressed after 3 beers is because plans have been the bread and butter of my existence until now. And now I have no plans, just the moment I'm in. For a woman who writes daily to-do lists, this is not a comfortable situation to find oneself in.
This is as far as I can see: Pray car lasts until Fall 2013. Attend an MFA program somewhere in the continental US. Following degree, pray for a job and a husband. Once a job is acquired, if no husband is to be found, seek other possibilities for obtaining a child.
That's a lot of praying for a Christmas Catholic.
When taking trips I am never content to let the GPS guide me. I can't handle only knowing a turn or two in advance. I want to know the whole trip, from point A to point B, and then I'll deal with the middle details after I've seen the whole route. The problem when turning that trip into a metaphor for life is that life happens in the middle details. It's not that I can't live for the present it's that I want to know the ending before I read the book. I eat dessert first. I always ask people to spoil the ending of movies for me. To date, this has always worked out for me.
But no one has seen this movie yet and no one's serving dessert and there is no map, just road signs. And it's all right. It truly is. And it will all be all right. But for now I'm deeply unsettled and finding it difficult to let go and just let life's current carry me where it will.
It's hard for a control freak to let go. (And before you go judging me for trying to control, understand this: because I'm a control freak I'm great at my job. I just suck at relaxing.)
We were driving from Chicago to Virginia with a Brit in the back seat, no GPS, and crappy Google directions. We ended up driving through bumblefuk Maryland. Rolling hills, tiny corner grocer's.....our English friend was giddy with glee as he got a peek at "real America." And our horribly diverted path ultimately took us to our destination, but we had more fun along the way. And this is how life is. These diversions, road blocks, detours, etc that are put before us are gifts.
This doesn't solve the problem that I have no clue where my ending destination is any more and I'm a little scared.
But I look forward to the wisdom I will acquire when I pass this juncture and learn to accept that worrying about the unknown is a waste of energy. And I look forward to being a more patient, less stressed Christine on January 18 2013.
Happy birthday to me. Let's drink to gray hairs, crow's feet, and the journey.
Happy Birthday Christine! This is Mark L. from Central! They always say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Mine include leaving my parents' house permanently, finding a job, enrolling in a PHD program that is NOT in the state of Wisconsin, and finding a Long-Term Guy. So, not too different from your goals. Facebook has made everything worse because I always look at other peoples' profiles and go, "Wow, that person gets to travel all over the country and world! Wow, that person has a long-term partner!) I think in my case, and maybe in yours too, peer pressure has a lot to do with it. Everyone my age (mid-twenties) is married and popping out babies like skittles. I'm jealous of that, really. Even the gay guys are pretty settled in relationships, not moi. Sigh! Of course, what I have to remember is to forget about what "Everyone Else" is doing and focus on myself.. not putting myself to some fake yardstick.
ReplyDeleteI guess I approach things a little differently than you do, Christine. I have made plenty of lists in my life and plenty of plans and goals. But I haven't mapped out exact routes to them. I just think, hey, at my age I'll get all this done sometime, at some point. The "middle details", as you so aptly call them, are just too unpredictable. But I do believe that each of us has a unique purpose in this world, whether we know what it is or not, we'll eventually arrive at it.
My problem, if you'll allow me to kvetch a little on your blog, is that I feel stuck in a rut. I've been pursuing my higher education for six years, and this will make the sixth. I've been in Wisconsin for six years. I'm still living with my parents when I'm not at school. I don't really feel like an adult and that's someone I want to feel like, desperately. Yet all the adults I talk with are super pessimistic when I tell them my plans- they tell me to get real, that jobs and economics will dictate most, if not all, of my decisions as a grown person. I don't want to believe that's true- is adulthood really a place where my dreams go to die? Anyways, sorry for the negativity and self-centeredness. Back to you.
Everything happens to us for a reason. I firmly believe it. Even the negative stuff or the crappy stuff. Just like I've got time to do all my goals, so do you.
And as for husbands.. please do not bewail your life as an old maid at 26. LOL. You are gorgeously beautiful, well-educated, intelligent, artistically talented, multilingual, exceptionally cultured, and you have a great sense of humor. I'm surprised the men aren't battering down your door with marriage proposals, like Penelope! Good Lord. If I was you, I'd go ahead and have a hundred boyfriends. Of course, you're not me, a fact I'm sure you muse upon with great relief ;) A husband will happen for you and I'm sure it will happen when it needs to. You're too amazing.
To the journey!