Planning my Mid-life Crisis

Life. The future. What's ahead of us. And how are we going to turn out? All such loaded questions and terms, full of unknowns and what-ifs. It's And really, those are all extraordinarily discrete. In fact, the future itself--something we try to harness and grasp--is really essentially notional and quite abstract. Yet, it--the future-- is something that we imagine our entire lives. From the time we're wee babes we start dreaming of what we want to do when we grow up. Once we're a little older romance, or a notion similar to it, enters into our minds. And now our dreams for the future are shaped not only around what we want to be when we grow up, but also who we want to marry, where we want to live, the kind of cars we want to drive, and what we want to name our children. 

The future is abstract. It's a scary unknown that we try to shape and mold to our liking. Luckily for us, it's also pliable. We can shape it into what we want. We can decide that when we grow up we want to be an archaeologist, that we want to marry the person we love, that we don't want children, and that we want to drive a Porsche, but will probably always be driving that reliable old Honda in the driveway (sometimes there are things in life that you've just got to accept). 

The word "future" is such a loaded term. It can mean so many things. It's wonderful and knows no limits in the fact that we can imagine it to be whatever we want to and that we can mold it to shape our liking. It's also unreliable, uncertain, and scary. With the snap of a finger and in the blink of an eye it can change unexpectedly and something wonderful and exciting can suddenly be overwhelming and crushing. 

Earlier tonight my boyfriend and I were sitting around, having an old movie night. I'd picked The Lady Vanishes, an Alfred Hitchcock film from 1938. Somewhere along the way in this early-twentieth century comedic thriller though, we got stopped paying attention and quietly started talking about other abstract things. We talked about our childhoods, the first time we'd smoked (cigarettes, of course...), similarities between our parents and why they act the way they do, and things we wanted to do. He told me about how his sister had gone backpacking in Europe while she'd studied abroad and I'd mentioned how I want to do that but I don't know when I'll have time. "Maybe I'll just do it when I'm seventy," I said with a flippant laugh. 

But then I got to thinking: what if I did do that when I'm older? Who knows where I'll be or what I'll be doing, or if I'll even be alive when I'm seventy. Or forty. Or even tomorrow for that matter. I know what I hope to be doing tomorrow, in twenty years, and in fifty--but will those hopes and dreams come to fruition? Or will they slowly lose their significance, fade into the background, and eventually vanish from our minds just like our Alfred Hitchcock film did tonight? 

The future scares me. I wish that for just one moment I could get a glimpse of what my life will be like when I'm forty. Where will I be living--Georgia, California, Indiana, somewhere else completely? What will I be doing--will I be a professor, working at a museum, a librarian, or something else? Will he and I still be together? Will he still be here? Will I? 

Most of all though I just want that glimpse so I'll be reassured that everything I'm doing is going to eventually be worth it and that in twenty or more years, I'll be happy. 

Happy, however, I am beginning to think is something that we strive for all of our lives, yet we never really truly reach. Or else, it's an intangible idea that we want to make tangible and can't and so we think we haven't achieved it. It's like nirvana. But I suppose that's an entry for another night.

Anyway, tonight's talk and future planing instilled in me this sense of urgency: there's all of this stuff I want to do that I haven't managed to even plan time for yet! Hence, I am already planning my mid-life crisis. I've already started making a list of all of the things I want to do that I'll do when it comes. Interestingly enough, this mid-life crisis list is scarily similar to my bucket list. And, in that sense, if you really think about it, it's a life list.

I'm probably not going to get that glimpse into the future that I want so badly. I guess I just need to accept that I'll probably be driving Snowy the Honda Accord for a while (I hope at least, the future is such a scary thing . . . I hope and pray nothing happens to that car). So what can we do? Just keep trudging forward, I suppose. Keep molding and reshaping our dreams and remember to always keep the volume of those dreams loud enough that they never vanish into the background. Sure, the future is abstract, pliable, and absolutely terrifying, but in a way, isn't that what makes it so endless and amazing?