Some days [and most of them include a visit from Aunt Flo - that dratted woman] I feel very sad reflecting on my life. I'm 22 years old with no experience besides 4 years in a small university. How is that going to land me another job? Will I work here forever? Will it always tear me and my spouse apart? Sometimes...I feel like I was supposed to have a different life. Like opportunities were presented to me but I didn't know what they were until they were gone.
When I feel this way, it's very hard to be like Pollyanna. Most of the time, I can convince myself that of course it's not going to be this way forever and that hopefully I'll find a job I'll love someday [maybe even in television!] and things will only get better from here. Most of the time, that seems possible.
But today, nothing seems possible, except that I've wasted my entire life doing absolutely nothing.
Come on, I'm 22. I've got years and years and years to do something! Or do I? Lately I've been feeling that I won't have that long to do something, to be something out of the ordinary. I feel as if I have a very short time in which to accomplish...something. I don't want to leave life with a dirty house, unwashed dishes, and no dreams realized.
So what if I KNEW that I wasn't going to live much longer? What would I do? Would I do something...or nothing? I keep thinking nothing. There's nothing I can really do right now - money is tight and I shouldn't be wasting it on frivolities like ballet class or art class or design school.
So...if I had nothing barring me from pursuing what I love - if I had everything going the way I thought it should be, if money were no object - what would I do? What would I want? What can I do to make that change?
Here's my wish list.
1. Complete an RPG campaign
2. Take ballet lessons and participate in a recital
3. Perform harp for a musical production
4. Land a role in a play
5. Go to an acting academy; graduate.
6. Land a role in a long-running t.v. series
7. Write several lovely childrens' books
8. Create a tasty soup recipe
9. Have a library filled with hundreds of books
10. Finish 4 dollhouse kits and the minis to decorate them
11. Make a doll
12. Lose 20 pounds
13. Win a fashion contest
14. Design and sell clothing
15. Keep the house clean enough to have company over whenever and not stress about it
16. Paint some beautiful paintings/take some beautiful pictures to put in our house
17. Move to a nice, new apartment/house so I can "start over" - preferably out West
18. Learn to sew my own clothing
19. Go sky-diving
20. Have a marathon of one of my favorite t.v. shows with good friends
21. Visit Australia
22. Read some great books
23. Have a closer relationship with God
24. Go ice-skating every once in a while
25. Learn and remember how to English Country Dance/Ballroom dance
26. Live near good friends that become like family
27. Be wiser, be kinder, more patient, more loving, more gentle, more quiet
28. Learn to keep my mouth shut and listen more
29. Model for a runway show or photo shoot
30. Live in a place where I can wander alone in the woods all afternoon and come back to see the light shining through the window and know my comfy chair is waiting for me by the fire and that Stu is waiting up for me so we can read together before we go to sleep.
Some of these, I've already been able to do...but that doesn't mean I don't want to do them again. Some of these, I can work on, and I'm going to write them down right now so I won't forget and so I actually WILL work on them.
Lent is a reflective season and came at just the right time...because I have a lot to reflect on. I'm going to reflect on what I can do about myself to become the better person I know I should be, and I'm going to reflect on how to recognize opportunity and seize it before it passes me by again.
Dear Kaitlin,
ReplyDeleteI think it's wonderful to have dreams and to live life working towards them. I loved reading the list of things you want to do. But there's something about your post that reminds me of a way of thinking in myself that I don't think is quite right. I think I live in a fairly constant fear of not accomplishing anything--which is why it's hard for me that I can't write poetry now, that I am not planning on going into academics in English, that I don't want a PhD and a professorship at some university. I am afraid of watching everyone else DO things with their lives while I just sit here. But while I'm afraid of all this, God has been telling me for quite a few years, I think, that I don't HAVE to do anything. The words teaches us, and the Adversary tries to trick us into thinking, that the things we accomplish will last longer than we will: brilliantly constructed buildings, famous symphonies, great poetry--those are the things that everyone thinks of as immortal, because it lasts. But that is not true. The world says that even the most insignificant worker who pushed stones up ramps was significant because the Pyramids are still standing as monuments to his labor thousands of years after he is dead. But it's exactly the other way around. That worker will exist millions of years after even the sand of those stones has been broken apart into its composite atoms. So even when Shakespeare was writing all his plays, it was as if he were making daisy chains that wilt in an hour or so. You are definitely not running out of time. I know they will still have long-running TV shows (or something equivalent and better) in heaven. So keep your list, but remember that YOU are so much more important than the things that are on it!
I love you!
~Elanor
Thank you, Elanor. :) You always manage to bring everything back into perspective. :) I think while writing this list I realize that none of them "really" accomplish something - none of them have the focus of building toward a career - I'm more interested in writing books because I want to develop little words for people to enjoy rather than to become a distinguished author; I'd rather dance in a ballet class for years just for the fun of it; and I'd rather be in a T.V. show because...well, because I think it would be fun. Is it wrong to just want fun out of life? I think loving people and enjoying things are what I'm good at and if I can do that...
ReplyDeleteI just think I spend too much time in the literal, practical, BORING everyday part of life and not enough in the loving people, being kind and compassionate, and being passionate about something part of life. I think that's what I realized when I re-read this.
Anyway, lots of thought about this...I'll be thinking it over for a while. Thanks again for writing a nice long reply...it makes me happy when I know people are understanding and interacting with me.
Love!
I meant to say I want to be good at loving people and that I am good at enjoying things...I'm good at loving things like art and creativity and imagination in a person but I need to be a little more concerned about loving the whole person, not just pieces.
ReplyDeleteAnyway...
:) That makes a lot of sense that you are trying to refocus yourself on the things you are passionate about rather than the things that keep the wheels of the checkbook turning. That sounds a lot more like the Kaitlin I know, instead of a Kaitlin who feels pressured to leave something behind for posterity in order to feel like her life matters.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts as events unfold ^_^