If

Wishing I could see and do it all.

I remember when I was younger, I used to have a goal to read every book in the whole world. Ha, if only! I have aspirations to set foot on every continent, finish my United States lifemap, swim in every ocean (ok, put a finger in the Arctic), and lots of other laundry lists of things I have grand plans to do before I die.



I'm looking at this future of mine (ok, it's being shoved down my throat) and trying to find time, money, resources, and places to live out everything I still want to accomplish (and the things I don't even know I want to accomplish yet) with my life. Yeah, I'm young. Sure, I'll be a doctor at age 25. I'll also be highly attached to my family, yet highly ready to get out of Michigan, and regardless, highly in debt. I'm ALSO highly indecisive about what I even want to do... which, when I'm feeling inspired, I like to think of as a merit, not a liability... but you understand, non-existant reader of my blog, don't you? ;)

Really, even just trying to weigh things like spending the summer doing some kind of travelling or unique experience in vet med (or a luscious combo of both) versus staying more conservative but making money - instead of spending it like it's going out of style - is taxing to me at the moment. I'd really like to be the one who comes back and has 'the coolest' summer experience out of anyone I know. (Why do I care what other people think? good question, but a topic for another post.) But figuring out what will serve me better in the long run makes me LONG for a time machine. Just to check up on the me in the future and to find out that no matter what I end up doing I'll be able to make sure I'm happy and healthy.

It reminds me a couple of parts of one of my favorite episodes of X-Files (yes, shoutout to XF...), "all things," written and directed by Gillian Anderson:

~
SCULLY: Mulder... Look, we're always running. We're always chasing the next big thing. Why don't you ever just stay still?
MULDER: I wouldn't know what I'd be missing.

~
MULDER: What is it?
SCULLY: I once considered spending my whole life with this man. What I would have missed.
MULDER: I don't think you can know. I mean, how many different lives would we be leading if we made different choices. We... We don't know.
SCULLY: What if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong? And there were signs along the way to pay attention to.
MULDER: Mmm. And all the... choices would then lead to this very moment. One wrong turn, and... we wouldn't be sitting here together. Well, that says a lot. That says a lot, a lot, a lot. That's probably more than we should be getting into at this late hour.
* (thanks to insidethex.co.uk for transcripts since I don't still know lines off the top of my head)

So I guess I'm just stuck with not knowing what to do about my destiny. Is this normal? Should I be more in the 45 year old range to be thinking about my impact on the world? Mid-life crisis come too soon? About to go out and buy a fire engine red Ferrari? (hopefully not- that would be thirteen ways of bad...) I just want to know, now that things are getting "full stakes," that I'm making the right choices. I don't want regrets. I don't want to have to do do-overs. I don't want to look back and wish that I hadn't made a choice for the wrong reasons. And it all seems so life or death at some points, and people I know already have careers and are starting families and maybe that's why I feel so pressed to make the right choice because I'm already behind in that game (not that I want to be ahead- if I get married at 28 and have my first baby at 30, that's a-ok with me).

All in all, I'm sure it's just a passing moment soon to be gone, and maybe it's just something people go through at this time of their life or stage of their education or phase of their personality or ... whatever, but I feel like it's making my very low blood pressure rise to almost normal levels. That will just not do. ;)

I'm sure I'm just not used to thinking of things as contained and finite. I know that everything really will work out alright, because I have so many great people around me to support me and steer me in the right direction if things get shaky. I just don't want them to- I don't want them to get shaky and I don't want people to have to help me out. Everything has come pretty easily to me, just by being, just by being me, and I think if it were ever really really difficult I might think that's not the right path.... but the path of least resistance isn't the one I want to be on, at least not when I think of it that way, so then I suppose that's where the confusion creeps in and congeals into anxiety.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not actually tearing up over this and it's not constantly wracking my brain, but it floats through my mind from time to time when I'm considering things in the future or am asked about it... and that's enough to stir me up (and those stirrings are what this blog is made of, like everyone else's, haha). I suppose hindsight will always be 20/20 no matter what I do. No way to know about something unless you jump in and try it and then you have to deal with the consequences in the future. Probably would be easier to do if you weren't aware of it...

please, slow it down
there's a secret magic password that you only notice when you're looking back at it
and all you wanna do is turn around
-Rocky Votolato, 'White Daisy Passing'



L.

currently listening: funnyman- kt tunstall
beatiful mistake- better than ezra
for the widows in paradise, for the fatherless in ypsilanti- sufjan stevens