Monday, June 9, 2014

I'm feeling..25?..

9 very short, exceedingly fleeting months from now, I will be 25. And I feel that ever looming quarter-life-crisis coming a bit early. 

I'm living in Rhode Island. I'm working (for the summer) in Massachusetts, and I don't have one iota of an idea what waits for me in September. I'm working at a Y summer camp, and there are positions that might open up in the fall at the Y in Connecticut, which is ideally where I want to be, but to be perfectly honest, I don't know if I want them. I've yearned, since before I even left, to get back to Connecticut, and now that the possibility is walking up to me, hand outstretched for shaking, I'm just waiting for the right moment to run the other way as fast as I can. 

My dilemma comes from the tiniest state in the land, that I now call home. I CHOSE Rhode Island. For it's region, its proximity to my favorite compound (water), my family, the food. And I've become so fond of it's traditions, people, accessibility, and just general splendor. 
I'm. Not. Ready. To. Leave.

I would be a damn fool to turn down the opportunity in the place I would eventually like to settle, simply for nostalgia's sake. But it's more than that.
There are so many things I still need to do in a very short number of years, and I can not, and will not, put myself in a position that extinguishes my 'dreams', no matter how crazy. 

I want to travel, experience different cultures, be alone, be loved, and I don't know where to start. 

All of my dreams and desires conflict and overlap and contradict the others, and in no particular order, they are:

1. Live in New York.
2. If not NYC, then Chicago or Boston or some big wonderful city, East of the Rockies. 
3. Live in the UK. Ireland, France, Scotland, Italy. (Those ARE in order.)
4. Marry a wonderful man who makes me a better person every day. 
5. Have a child
6. Open my own bakery
7. Audition for more broadway shows than I can count, and hopefully take the stage in one. 
8. Become an Astronomer.
9. Work in an office as a receptionist, and get to dress up every day. 
10. Live alone, and watch Netflix with wine and my cats. 
11. Be able to own cats and not get any grief about it. 
12. Have enough time to craft things and sell them for profit. 
13. Participate in local theatre shows and not care how good or bad I may be. 
14. Finish college (hah!)
15. Be happy. 

Obviously, some of these are more than attainable, they're likely. The dilemma comes from not having any one dream that sticks out, or any few things that I would feel comfortable putting on the back burner. I want them all equal, and at the risk of sounding like Veruca Salt and her golden eggs, I want them now. I want them before I'm too old to achieve them. Biologically, I can't put some of those on hold for too long, or else they will never happen. How does one decide what their next step will be? How do I choose between Broadway and my children? How do I say it's the stars or the bakery, but not both? It's an impossible decision, which is why I'm rapidly approaching 25, with this list of my yet-to-come accomplishments. 

I've never been a decidedly Christian person. I'm very scientifically inclined, and while I believe in universal power and energy, I don't believe the Christian God can help me now.

So how do I pick? Rosemary's baby. 
To be clear, this is not rhetorical. I would please like some advice and life coaching. And not the, "do whatever your heart tells you," because, if you read what I just wrote, it's all of those things, which is impossible. 

In the grand scheme, I like to take things one day at a time, but with half an eye on the coming months, which is how I'm able to wake up each morning not in eternal existential crises. Just little mini ones. How I've all but decided I'm not ready to leave the state in the fall. I've got people I love, whether they know it or not, here, and day to day, that's what keeps me going.

Maybe that's why they call them "crises." Quarter, or mid-life. They're not solvable. They're not decipherable, except one day at a time, and you don't know you're through it until you're through it, but in the midst, you feel utterly lost and helpless. 

Crisis:
Noun: 
• a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.
• a time when a difficult or important decision must be made.

While I usually write these posts as diary entries, I'm desperately and pathetically pleading for feedback. Email, text, comment, personal message, however. Please be cruel and hard on me and don't take pity or sugar coat. I need honesty and support and disbelievers and hope. Who are you without people around you, of all kinds. Just be prepared, if you choose to discuss a non-positive route on one of my dreams, I WILL fight you and defend myself. You've been warned. 

I anxiously and fervently await responses. 

Go raibh céad míle maith agat.
-Ro