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If someone had asked me, ten years ago, where I thought I might be ten years hence, I'd have responded with a shrug and said I really, really don't know. And I really didn't. I had some ambitions and aspirations, but these were still pretty vague beyond the usual desires to be happy, be fulfilled, etc. I was working on my PhD, but wasn't sure that I wanted to pursue an academic life; my husband and I had spoken about having children, but weren't sure when we'd be ready. I was entering my fourth decade, but I still didn't really know how I wanted things to pan out, other than - obviously - well.
It's been a treat to correspond with fellow BlogHer editor, fellow Canadian, and bona fide young 'un Sassymonkey, because talking to her has felt very much - and very comfortably - like talking to my younger self, who, truth be told, is not a whole lot different from my current self. If this were Lost, we'd be in all sorts of flashbacks and flash-forwards and flash-sidewayses, and she and I would still seem very much the same. Which is, I think, as it should be. If you're fundamentally grounded and fundamentally at ease with yourself, you're not going to be radically transformed decade after decade. Unless you're into that or are Madonna. So, yes, corresponding with Karen has been wonderfully comforting, because it has reminded me that it wasn't - and still isn't - strange to be taking life one day at a time at any age. That it's kind of awesome, actually.
This is her side of our conversation (with little interruptions by me). She'll post my side ...
Karen on her fears/hopes/aspirations for the future:
For me, they are all kind of intertwined. At 20, I was just a doe-eyed university student trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with life. OK, that's not entirely true. I was a doe-eyed university student who was told that I should be figuring out what to do with my life and ignoring the people who told me that. I was probably even told I should already have it all figured out.
When I was a kid and planning for life, it was all about getting into university. I had no idea what to do once I got there (not even what to study) or once I left. At 30, I don't know that I've got it figured out all that much more than I did then. Oh sure, I've made progress, but the idea of setting aspirations, i.e. goals, wigs me out. (As I sit typing this I'm sitting in a city I never really had any intention of living in. I'm married when I had no intention of getting married. (Catherine: me too! That was me 10 years ago, too!) I feel like the last six years have been a bit of a whirlwind of life in its own quiet sort of way. Nothing I've done is really grand by any definition of the word, but if my 25-year-old self could see me now, she'd ask how the heck I got here. The answer is: in the most round-about away possible. (Catherine: think of it as the scenic route. So much awesome in the scenic route.)
I feel at 30 that I still haven't quite got my feet firmly on the ground yet, and I'm not sure how to plan when I don't know that I've landed. I feel like there are at least four different directions I could go in right now, and I'm not sure which path I'll end up on. I'm sure that at 40 I'll look back at my thirties and think I could have done things easier, that I could have done things without circling them three times like a dog trying to decide to lay down (Catherine: as someone who is approaching forty, can I say? YES YOU WILL. But it doesn't make a lick of difference. You learn stuff in the doing. *I* learned stuff in the doing.) My twenties taught me that when I decide to do something I can do it. While on vacation in Montreal, I decided I want to move back and found an apartment in 20 minutes. Doing things isn't my problem, it's deciding out of the half-dozen opportunities open to me which I want to do. I just need to decide which things I want to do before 40. (Catherine: Nah. Forty doesn't
