Are we ever really sure about what it is we want from life? At 26, I'm having a "middle-life" crisis if you will. Or maybe that's not the best way to describe it. All I know, is that I am currently in a place where I don't know what it is I want from life. Actually, it's more of not being where I thought I would be, should be, by now both professionally and personally.
If you had asked me 5 years ago where I would want to be right now, I would have said in grad school working towards a phd in literature and in love. 10 years ago I would have replied that I would be finishing law school and engaged - back then I knew I'd be married at 28. That seems like the perfect age - by 28 one would imagine being relatively financially stable and ready to commit professionally and emotionally. However, both options appear to be completely impossible right now. For one, I work in the insurance industry. There's nothing wrong with that, it is just that insurance is neither law nor literature. As for the love, I haven't even had a boyfriend. Again, not that big of a deal, but when I get thinking about how none of the aspirations I had for myself are feasable, it becomes a source of consternation -it makes me feel almost like a failure and really question myself and my life - what am I doing with it? where am I going? what do I want? and, is everything I lack a direct result of who I am?
Other times I wonder if I only believe I want those things because society has conditioned me to associate professional success and love and marriage with happiness - the "white-picket fence" syndrome. I honestly do think that not everyone wants or needs those things to be happy, but when you're constantly bombarded by these ideals, you begin to want them for yourself, assuming that once possessed inner peace, self satisfaction and purpose are found. I know people who have those things and still aren't happy, they still question their decisions, their career choice, did they marry the right person. Does this ever end? I don't want to be that, but am I cursed to be forever dissatisfied?
I know I want those things - a good job, a family, love. But what if none of those things are for me? It scares me to think like that, but I also don't want to be the forever optimist awaiting something that will never come. Life is not a fairy tale, good things don't come for those who wait, and nice people DO finish last.
I think about what I have done and I feel I have not accomplished anything. I also think about what kind of person I am and again, being the way I am hasn't led me anywhere special, it hasn't enlightened me, it hasn't filled me with clarity, joy or meaning. It's frustrating. I am constantly reminded that I am kind, intelligent, generous, witty, attractive woman, but does any of that matter? Where has it gotten me? Sometimes, certain people reproach me for being "blessed" with all these qualities and it bothers me because I think, if they're right, if indeed I am all those things, why is my life so meaningless?
In the past few months, I decided to get out of my comfort zone, be a normal single woman in her 20's and enjoy life. Of course this means going out every weekend, dancing, doing some drinking and having fun. Sure, it's been fun but not effortless. That world isn't me. It doesn't make me happy. I don't find any comfort in it, instead I find emptiness; it saddens me. But what is it that I'm supposed to be doing then? I wish someone would come down and just tell me what to do. Tell me how to be happy and satisfied. Tell me how to fill this void that just expands as I age.
I want the simple things in life, it doesn't take much to please me. But sometimes those little things are the ones that are the hardest to find, the ones we wait a lifetime for and may never come. The only option is to continue waiting, an hoping, that whatever it is will come. In the meantime, I need this suffocating feeling of drowning in oblivion to vanish...
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