Taking stock - Moving forward
So on Tuesday, 20 January 2009 (around 17:30 if you want to be that specific), my 20s end. It's been a weird decade.
My 20s ended with my fourth trip to the UK (November 2008), and started with my first trip (March 1999) - fulfillment of a lifelong ambition, beginning of a lifelong nonsensical yearning. Why should I consider the UK my Home when I've spent only five months or so of nearly 30 years there? But the fact remains that it's getting harder and harder to leave that damp little island and return to the States. I can't promise that I'll move there and live Happily Ever AfterTM, but I'd like to at least try it for five years or so.
I fell in love twice in this past decade (for the second and third times in my life), neither of those going anywhere. However, each time it happens, I'm learning and getting braver, thanks to my first experience (just after high school) teaching me the mantra, "Uncertainty Sucks." Climbing out on that limb is difficult, because you never know what the guy is going to do with that saw you just handed him. But even if he starts hacking away, at least you get an answer. Life lesson #71: "What if?" is the worst question in the world. And the third (most recent) guy is at least still talking to me - we're still friends (if anything, I feel like my telling him how I felt broke through some barrier we'd still had; it feels like we've gotten more relaxed with each other since then) - so that's progress. Still, while "sweet 16 and never been kissed" is cliché, it starts getting tiresome 14 years later. (No, I'm not counting a male friend's greeting/parting cheek-kisses during our visit last November. I still think they were sweet and the first took me completely by happy surprise, but for this purpose, they're not being counted.)
In a fit of what can only be temporary insanity (lasting four years), I moved to the California desert in my 20s, in an attempt to fly the nest. Little did I know the nest was going to follow me - simultaneously and independent of my decision, my parents decided to move to the same desert town, to be near my sister and her family. If nothing else, my desert years confirmed that I actually am a City Girl. I need access to bookstores, decent shopping, cinemas. In short, I need to be closer than an hour's drive to Civilization. The Middle of Nowhere is nice to visit (though I must admit I do so only because my family lives out there), but living there will drive some insane. I imagine that explains the high level of drug use out there...
So my 20s also saw me moving to the ocean, a direct result of a "Where the hell have you been all my life?!" meeting with loveslashangst, one of the best friends I've ever had. Definitely the best housemate I've ever had.
Actually, after a long dry spell in the friends department, the latter half of my 20s unearthed some of the best people I've ever known. People I now can't imagine my life without - loveslashangst, starrynights24, leda74, Mark, Flare, to name a few. Some of these same people challenged me and/or my thinking in ways I couldn't have predicted - and I mean that in good ways. As LSA says, there's the family you're born to and the family you choose - and for me, the latter has proven extremely interesting.
Three years ago this month, I adopted my two furboys, Keegan and Chaucer, thereby becoming a dog person in the employ of felines. Or, as I like to call myself, "an equal opportunity animal lover". Who says black cats are unlucky? Meeting Keegan was one of the luckiest days of my life! And I'm extremely fortunate that the boys love LSA and Leda and their husband (and vice versa), because I'm planning on having to leave them behind when I move Home. My family out in the desert has four dogs and at least one allergy to cats, so I can't leave the boys out there. Therefore, I named the Spice as my sons' godparents.
My nephew was born when I was 20! Let's not forget him!
My 20s saw my current state of California approve marriage equality by legalizing same-sex marriages! And also saw outright lies and out-of-state money contribute to the removal of that equality. So the fight continues.
And let's not forget that my 20s saw America elect our first black - our first mixed-ethnicity - President!
So, where do we go from here? Why is the path unclear... No, sorry, that's Once More with Feeling...
Seriously. I know that everyone follows their own path and I've made different choices and had different priorities than others. My sister and LSA were both married at 20, my parents married at 24; I'm a decade away from being a Steve Carell movie. Of late, I've been encountering people I knew in high school on Facebook and discovering that while I've been working and globetrotting, they married, had kids, started careers, some are getting divorced.
Don't get me wrong, here - I don't envy those people. Yes, I'd like to be married someday, even if I don't want kids. But some of the aforementioned people finished school, got married, started having kids, and now bemoan the fact that they've never done the traveling they would like to do - the traveling I've done. My parents, 64 years old, have never left North America - my trip with them to the UK next November will be their first time off the continent. I would like to be married when I find the Right GuyTM, but I also love to travel, so my husband had better be prepared for that! ;-) Getting married someday is no guarantee that I'm going to "settle down."
I don't regret the choices I've made. Everything I've ever done has worked to create the person I am now. Changing any one of them changes who I am. (What's the line about pulling one thread of the tapestry?) So I long ago decided to stop regretting things. Learn from them, yes. (Watch if I ever again quit a job without having a new one lined up!) Regret them, no.
But still. I have always, to some degree, envied those people who have a certainty about their lives, about their career. I had three different majors before graduating with my B.A. in English-Creative Writing. And even getting my degree didn't succeed in narrowing me down, because I still don't know what to do with the ol' sheepskin. People who get a degree in Engineering are Engineers (well, except for one I know who went on to become one of the greatest hypnotherapists I've ever encountered!) - people who get a degree in English are... what, exactly? (As an aside, I feel I should take offense that in The Sims 2, if you have the University expansion pack, having your Sim get an English degree is considered good preparation for the Slacker career track. ...no, seriously, that's a career track in the game - starts with Golf Caddy and ends with Professional Party Guest, if memory serves.)
Shouldn't you know what you want to do with your life by the time you're 30? Shouldn't I feel some sense of direction? The only thing keeping me sane right now (in that regard, at least; I make no other promises about my sanity) is the line from "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" (better known as "Wear Sunscreen"): "Don't feel bad if you don't know what you want to do with your life. Some of the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't."
I know I want to at least try living in the UK for a while. I still have a vague ambition about being a published novelist. In large part thanks to meeting Mark, my interest in psychology has been reawakened and deepened in the past year and a half, but do I want to go back to school and pursue that? And why the hell do I feel so lost?
Answering these questions right now feels impossible. I'm working my ass off on freelance, trying to keep my financial head above water, trying to find a new job in a shitty economy. In short, as I enter my 30s, I'm consumed with basic survival. And with ceasing to be a burden on my loved ones. I'm grateful to have people in my life who are looking out for me and helping me, but I also have a fierce independent streak that keeps whispering that I'm a loser for not being able to buy my own groceries. Still, at least I'm not living in my parents' basement, eh?
All I can do right now is keep sending out résumés, keep plugging along on the freelance, and keep taking my lead from Disney quotes: "Just keep swimming!" and "Keep moving forward." And keep hoping that it'll all make sense sometime soon.
Did you actually read all this? I can't believe that. *channels Ferris Bueller* It's over. Go home. ...Go.
My 20s ended with my fourth trip to the UK (November 2008), and started with my first trip (March 1999) - fulfillment of a lifelong ambition, beginning of a lifelong nonsensical yearning. Why should I consider the UK my Home when I've spent only five months or so of nearly 30 years there? But the fact remains that it's getting harder and harder to leave that damp little island and return to the States. I can't promise that I'll move there and live Happily Ever AfterTM, but I'd like to at least try it for five years or so.
I fell in love twice in this past decade (for the second and third times in my life), neither of those going anywhere. However, each time it happens, I'm learning and getting braver, thanks to my first experience (just after high school) teaching me the mantra, "Uncertainty Sucks." Climbing out on that limb is difficult, because you never know what the guy is going to do with that saw you just handed him. But even if he starts hacking away, at least you get an answer. Life lesson #71: "What if?" is the worst question in the world. And the third (most recent) guy is at least still talking to me - we're still friends (if anything, I feel like my telling him how I felt broke through some barrier we'd still had; it feels like we've gotten more relaxed with each other since then) - so that's progress. Still, while "sweet 16 and never been kissed" is cliché, it starts getting tiresome 14 years later. (No, I'm not counting a male friend's greeting/parting cheek-kisses during our visit last November. I still think they were sweet and the first took me completely by happy surprise, but for this purpose, they're not being counted.)
In a fit of what can only be temporary insanity (lasting four years), I moved to the California desert in my 20s, in an attempt to fly the nest. Little did I know the nest was going to follow me - simultaneously and independent of my decision, my parents decided to move to the same desert town, to be near my sister and her family. If nothing else, my desert years confirmed that I actually am a City Girl. I need access to bookstores, decent shopping, cinemas. In short, I need to be closer than an hour's drive to Civilization. The Middle of Nowhere is nice to visit (though I must admit I do so only because my family lives out there), but living there will drive some insane. I imagine that explains the high level of drug use out there...
So my 20s also saw me moving to the ocean, a direct result of a "Where the hell have you been all my life?!" meeting with loveslashangst, one of the best friends I've ever had. Definitely the best housemate I've ever had.
Actually, after a long dry spell in the friends department, the latter half of my 20s unearthed some of the best people I've ever known. People I now can't imagine my life without - loveslashangst, starrynights24, leda74, Mark, Flare, to name a few. Some of these same people challenged me and/or my thinking in ways I couldn't have predicted - and I mean that in good ways. As LSA says, there's the family you're born to and the family you choose - and for me, the latter has proven extremely interesting.
Three years ago this month, I adopted my two furboys, Keegan and Chaucer, thereby becoming a dog person in the employ of felines. Or, as I like to call myself, "an equal opportunity animal lover". Who says black cats are unlucky? Meeting Keegan was one of the luckiest days of my life! And I'm extremely fortunate that the boys love LSA and Leda and their husband (and vice versa), because I'm planning on having to leave them behind when I move Home. My family out in the desert has four dogs and at least one allergy to cats, so I can't leave the boys out there. Therefore, I named the Spice as my sons' godparents.
My nephew was born when I was 20! Let's not forget him!
My 20s saw my current state of California approve marriage equality by legalizing same-sex marriages! And also saw outright lies and out-of-state money contribute to the removal of that equality. So the fight continues.
And let's not forget that my 20s saw America elect our first black - our first mixed-ethnicity - President!
So, where do we go from here? Why is the path unclear... No, sorry, that's Once More with Feeling...
Seriously. I know that everyone follows their own path and I've made different choices and had different priorities than others. My sister and LSA were both married at 20, my parents married at 24; I'm a decade away from being a Steve Carell movie. Of late, I've been encountering people I knew in high school on Facebook and discovering that while I've been working and globetrotting, they married, had kids, started careers, some are getting divorced.
Don't get me wrong, here - I don't envy those people. Yes, I'd like to be married someday, even if I don't want kids. But some of the aforementioned people finished school, got married, started having kids, and now bemoan the fact that they've never done the traveling they would like to do - the traveling I've done. My parents, 64 years old, have never left North America - my trip with them to the UK next November will be their first time off the continent. I would like to be married when I find the Right GuyTM, but I also love to travel, so my husband had better be prepared for that! ;-) Getting married someday is no guarantee that I'm going to "settle down."
I don't regret the choices I've made. Everything I've ever done has worked to create the person I am now. Changing any one of them changes who I am. (What's the line about pulling one thread of the tapestry?) So I long ago decided to stop regretting things. Learn from them, yes. (Watch if I ever again quit a job without having a new one lined up!) Regret them, no.
But still. I have always, to some degree, envied those people who have a certainty about their lives, about their career. I had three different majors before graduating with my B.A. in English-Creative Writing. And even getting my degree didn't succeed in narrowing me down, because I still don't know what to do with the ol' sheepskin. People who get a degree in Engineering are Engineers (well, except for one I know who went on to become one of the greatest hypnotherapists I've ever encountered!) - people who get a degree in English are... what, exactly? (As an aside, I feel I should take offense that in The Sims 2, if you have the University expansion pack, having your Sim get an English degree is considered good preparation for the Slacker career track. ...no, seriously, that's a career track in the game - starts with Golf Caddy and ends with Professional Party Guest, if memory serves.)
Shouldn't you know what you want to do with your life by the time you're 30? Shouldn't I feel some sense of direction? The only thing keeping me sane right now (in that regard, at least; I make no other promises about my sanity) is the line from "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" (better known as "Wear Sunscreen"): "Don't feel bad if you don't know what you want to do with your life. Some of the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't."
I know I want to at least try living in the UK for a while. I still have a vague ambition about being a published novelist. In large part thanks to meeting Mark, my interest in psychology has been reawakened and deepened in the past year and a half, but do I want to go back to school and pursue that? And why the hell do I feel so lost?
Answering these questions right now feels impossible. I'm working my ass off on freelance, trying to keep my financial head above water, trying to find a new job in a shitty economy. In short, as I enter my 30s, I'm consumed with basic survival. And with ceasing to be a burden on my loved ones. I'm grateful to have people in my life who are looking out for me and helping me, but I also have a fierce independent streak that keeps whispering that I'm a loser for not being able to buy my own groceries. Still, at least I'm not living in my parents' basement, eh?
All I can do right now is keep sending out résumés, keep plugging along on the freelance, and keep taking my lead from Disney quotes: "Just keep swimming!" and "Keep moving forward." And keep hoping that it'll all make sense sometime soon.
Did you actually read all this? I can't believe that. *channels Ferris Bueller* It's over. Go home. ...Go.