Wednesday, January 16, 2008

got a map?

i still don't know what i want to be when i grow up. which is a little disturbing, 'cause i know that i am grown already. the disturbing thing isn't that i don't know what i want to do with myself, 'cause it's been my opinion for many years, that you can't expect an inexperienced young person to know what experiences they'd like to have. if they know, great. if they don't know, at some point, they'll know from experience, which is better than making an arbitrary decision that they'll stick with for the sake of being seen as responsible, or successful, or whatever. the disturbing thing is the possibility that once i figure out what i want to do with myself, i might have a hard time pursuing that path because of other stuff that i've already done. for example, it's too late for me to become a tennis champ now, at the ripe age of damn-am-i-that-close-to-30? or here's another: it's too inconvenient (read: expensive) for me to go to school to become an engineer now that i've gotten into my current amount of debt to do what i'm doing now. i guess it's good that i don't want to be either one of those things. but i do worry about how motherhood and my career may keep me from trying new things. even now, i know that they can. i had to put poetry on the side for my career about a year ago, and it ain't been the same since. might as well face it - it won't be the same. i don't know when or if i'll finish my book, do any freelancing, use my passport to go to the motherland... i hope so. i intend to. i just don't know, you know? i'm a pisces - watery, mutable, noncommittal - we're just like that. i realize now that throughout my adulthood, once weaned from the guidance of my parents, i've gone where the wind has taken me, kind of like the feather in that movie about the man who did all these extraordinary things just by kind of falling into them. it's been a wonderful life. it is still a wonderful and charmed life. i just don't know where it's going. i'm not even sure what i want from it. the question has confronted me often over the last few months - how can you have an action plan to achieve something when you don't have a goal in mind?