There's this saying that goes "Don't worry about future problems until you come face to face with them". It says that because if you worry about the problem ahead of time and there turns out to be no problem at all, you've worried for nothing. The other part says that if you worry about it now and there turns out to be a problem then you've just worried about the same problem twice. I really like that saying, but I'm starting to doubt its accuracy.
I'm 19 now, almost 20, so hopefully I have a lot more living to do, but I can't help thinking that parts if my future won't be as rosy colored as I envisioned them to be. I'm a bit of a daydreamer, you see, and I'm terribly old-fashioned. I grew up in a house with two loving parents and a younger sister who annoyed the heck out of me, but who looked up to her big sister as if I were some sort of saint. I never had any dreams of ultimate success like six or seven figure paychecks and multibillion dollar houses. To me, where I was then was right were I wanted to end up in my own life. My parents looked happy. Sure they weren't perfect. Parts of their relationship were just as damaged as any other, but they were happy and they still are, even more so, I think, now that I'm out of the house. I was comfortable back then. I'm still comfortable today. Comfort was the ultimate goal I saw for myself as I looked into my future. I won't lie. I was consumed with the white pecket fence dream. In my future I saw a three story house, two cars, a dog named Chester and not two, but five kids all with some part of their name starting with the letter D.
It was a beautiful dream, but now........now it seems like the older I get the more that dream is starting to slip away, kind of like trying to hold on to water. For my future now I see uncertainty and adventure. I want to go to law school after I finish my ungraduate degree. I want to study International Law so that I can one day go work for an intergovernmental organization (IGO) or a non-governmental organization (NGO) that concerns itself with international non-profit work. I think my true goal is an IGO, so I'll work hard to reach it. Before that, though, I want to go to Japan and teach for a year through the JET program and after that maybe South Korea too. I want to study in China for two or three years so that I can really immerse myself in the Mandarin language. And of course I'd love to go to France too. I'm not sure what I'd do there, but I couldn't have my five years of learning french go to waste. That'd be nearly impossible for me.
A life of adventure sounds fastinating, right? It would for me too, if I didn't see me going through it alone. Of course there's family and friends, but when you can't see a significant other in it or any little babes screaming "mom" things start to get a little dreary. Of course married life isn't for everyone. My mom's best friend is an amazing woman. She's got a Masters in Public Administration, a teaching cerificate, and a law degree, not to mention she loves the Lord like no other, but has never been married or had any kids. She's spent her entire life as a caregiver putting others before herself and that's what made her happy, at least I hope she's happy. If anything, she'll never run out of joy.
That life may be perfect for her, but it's something that I've never seem for myself, so finally seeming it now scares me a little. I just hope that sometime down the rode when everything thing is said and done and I look back on my life, that I won't be disappointed. I feel like crying for my future self right now, because I never want to get to a point in my life where it's too late to cry. And so what if I worry now and there turns out to not be a problem? Won't that make my heart lighter knowing there was nothing to worry about instead of having it unguarded to a problem if there actually is one. These are the things that I think about sometimes. I hope I haven't depressed you mon cheri cyberworld. A bientot.
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