so tomorrow's my birthday. come midnight, i'm one year older... well, technically, come late afternoon tomorrow, i'm one year older. point is: one more year down the drain.
a year goes by -- a year we promised ourselves would be lived differently, more actively, with more purpose, with a better sense of self, with more life -- and everything looks different, seems more active and more purposeful, but really none of it has changed all that much. nothing ever really does.
i had such grand ideas for where i'd be at 23. from the earnest of high school, from the yesteryears of study halls and note passing, i planned my life, and as naive as the whole scheming may have been, at least some part of me has continued to work toward that plan.
at 17, i will graduate from high school at the top of my class. (x)
that following autumn at the age of 18, i will enroll at harvard (or maybe columbia) for my freshmen year of university. [harvard and columbia sent me applications, but when faced with the possibility that they may not accept me, i decided it was better to choose not to follow the plan than to fail while trying to accomplish it... so a miss (o)]
at 22 with my degree in psychology (or maybe theater or even journalism), i will enter the working world as a forensic psychologist (or actor or journalist) in new york city and attempt to meet my soulmate. [let's see... degree in communications from the university of illinois which is close to journalism, but not quite... definitely don't have a job i like and have not met anyone i know to be my soulmate, though buckets is quite nice... so another miss... well, a partial miss (c)]
at 23 having been seriously together for a year, i will get engaged and then subsequently married. [uh, yeah, probably not going to happen... (o)]
at 25 after 2 years of marital bliss, we will have our first child - a boy. [need i say more than (o)?]
at 27, our second child will be born (a girl this time), and we will move to london and get a french nanny so the children will grow up at least bilingual. (o)
at 29, baby number 3 (another boy) will join the family, completing the ultimate child configuration of boy-girl-boy. (o) (though i do still agree with the boy-girl-boy child arrangement)
at 31, we will begin to travel the world with babies in tow; the children (and myself) will get to see the world and experience things most never do. [i wish, i hope (o)]
at 35, having traveled the world and with our eldest son just turning 10, we will move back to chicago to be near my family. (o)
i think the original plan went upwards of my 50+ years, but i feel a little silly looking back at this. to think i actually wrote this down so i could refer to it. to think it was taped to the door of my locker at school. to think this was what i thought, felt, knew would happen to me. to think this is what i wanted. to think in many ways this is what i still want.
sometimes i don't think i have the ability to distinguish between the dreams i should hold onto and those that just need to be let go. i'm almost one year older, but i never seem to grow up. let go. move on. eyes looking to the future with both feet in the past.
tomorrow, i turn 23. i'm supposed to get married this year.
p.s. i just realized the miss symbols looked like boobs or buttholes or something else kinda not-so-right... also, be on the look out for my post about pride weekend (i'm trying to figure out a way to get the photos off my camera without the cable designed to facilitate such a task) because believe me, a whole lot more happened other than me sitting on a birdhouse in bucktown... yes, i was mistaken at 6 am when i sent that audiolog. it was not wicker park at all.
posted by brett @ 12:03 PM
3 Comments:
consider it a deal...
i'm totally wearing chaps.
Happy Birthday
CF
thanks for the well-wishing!
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