The Life Fantastic

As much as it freaks me out when friends or classmates get engaged (most likely), married (fair amount of them, too), or have kids (less likely but still has happened), I have to admit that part of me is jealous. I'm jealous of their conviction, their seeming certainty, and the fact that some part of their life will be set. This seems incongorious, particularly in light of my personal tendancy to up and move overseas at the slightest provocation.

Though I am in no position to make anyone any kind of permanent promises, I am envious of their conviction that this person is the person with whom they want to spend the rest of their lives, and vice versa. Statistically speaking they only have a 50% chance of success, and perhaps less if the statistics reflect the particularly short-lived marriages many my age have. Perhaps the expectation of forever only exacerbates the (perhaps inevitable) tragedy when it all falls apart, and a viable relationship is not, in my opinion, contingent on marriage, nor is marriage a cure for a failing relationship. Still, I am envious they are so certain--though I realize I am myself too young to want to settle down and start a family, as seems to be the logical next step for these marrying friends and classmates. Part of me wishes someone were so certain about me, though I know who I am now is not who I will be when I am in a position to decide more than the next year or so of my life, and this other person, this later model of me, is the one who can make and keep promises. I wish my friends well, and hope they beat the odds.

While part of me is looking forward to continuing studies, and of the interesting places I will go and things I will learn, part of me wants to just be done, to get it over with and go on to join the working world, earn an actual income, pay off debts, and not be committed to multiyear programs. Whenever I am working I wish I were studying to learn more, experience more; studying encourages me to read things I otherwise wouldn't have read, to consider them, and to analyse them. When I am studying I wish I were just working, where the product of my labor would be something useful and not just some term paper that one person will read and will mould in my closet bearing its arbitrary mark.

I admire the freedom of some college dropouts who can just up and move somewhere for the sake of a relationship, a wild desire, or an urge to travel. I admire the dedication of those who decide to come back, and I realize that my commitment to the system and to myself means I will never be either of these people--I will not drop out, and thus not have to return--but I realize I have, in many respects, taken the easier road whose parameters were defined for me. I have done fewer things truly remarkable though as few have been out of the ordinary. My enthusiasm and work ethic have brought me as far as they have, but I haven't faced real challenges, I haven't done anything exceptional or overcome particular hardships. Building character, I guess.

I suppose I just wish I had more figured out. I sort of know what I want to work at, and how to get there, though I imagine I will have to work my way up and may have to move a bit a the beginning. Some day, I think I want to have a family and kids, but that comes at some later, indeterminate point. I want to travel, but don't know where or when or how. My vantage point allows me only a year or two at best, and beyond that, who knows who I'll end up as, where I'll be, with whom, and what I'll be doing. But you can visit me anytime :)