So I'm posting because Qortnee has put me to shame lately with the updates on her site. I feel like a pathetic slacker. But really...I have nothing to blog about.
It's almost my birthday...therefore I'm almost a geezer. Actually, it honestly is a bit weird for me. I've never been one of those people to set out a life plan in stone for myself - because I always felt that was setting yourself up for disappointment and really, with the external things that can often be disappointing in life, why set up an internal barometer too. Don't confuse this with not having goals...I just have never mentally established any "by the time I'm 25 I want to have...." But, since I'm now 2 years shy of the big 3-0, I'm starting to think that maybe I should rethink this theory.
A person I knew in high school had these milestone markers for certain ages in life. As much as I thought then she was crazy, from what I understand she had achieved many of the items on her list. Obviously we haven't kept in touch, so I don't know if she's achieved them "on time" or not, but nonetheless, her system apparently worked for her.
I still don't know if I can say that by the time I'm 35 I want to be at this point in life or have achieved this. How do I know that what I want at 28 is what I'll want at 30, 40 or 50? Life is full of lessons and if we put ourselves on a specific path does that put us at risk for missing unexpected pleasures? What if I map my life out and then someone or something comes into my life that makes me tempted to walk down a path other than the one that I had mapped out? Do I stick to my ideal age-oriented goals or do I risk it all for something that could potentially make me happier? Let's face it, I know myself well enough to know that I'd probably take the latter. I've always had a special place in my heart for the last line of "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
I will always be the type of person who wants to know that my choices make a difference. Whether it's a personal difference or one more broad. All I know that that choices I make in life, regardless of how they are perceived by others have to make me happy and make a difference in my own life. If I had a mapped out plan that said that by X-age I want to have this specific thing accomplished, I want to know that if this new, interesting adventure came along, that I'd be willing to risk veering from my plan if it meant a truly happier Crystal.
So, I guess, this rant and basically typing my thoughts has made me firmly establish that I can't map out my life in such a structured way. Afterall, "in the book of life, the answers aren't in the back" - Charlie Brown. My map?? By the end of my life I hope that I have made choices that made me a stronger, more intelligent woman who is happy and who has spent a lifetime loving and being loved.
Well...I guess I had something to blog about afterall. xo
