Last night I had typed up almost an entire post, 45 minutes worth of typing, only to have the computer flip-out and delete it, and at that precise moment before CTRL+Z the page to auto-save. Lovely! There’s something to be said for paper and pencil. At least that way I don’t have to worry about the paper having a glitch and erasing the whole thing. And yet…here I am retyping.
Things happen for a reason though. The post I had typed last night was really nothing more than a ramble, with no central thought or idea. It wasn’t until last night Matt came to bed and announced that he was in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, that I realized what it was that I was writing about. We go through our formative years thinking, or rather knowing, what our lives should be: Graduate high school, go on to college and get the degree, land the job and the marriage, setup house and have a family.
The steps are all the same, but somehow they don’t seem to have turned out the way we anticipated. At 13, I wanted to be a pastor: At 14, a veterinarian: At 16, an architect: 17, a photojournalist for National Geographic: 18, ….? I graduated college with a B.S. in English (BS is right). Throughout all of those years, the one thing I ultimately wanted was to be a published writer and recognized for my work: The “One Original Idea”, which John Nash was always seeking. Needless to say, I’m still searching.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my life and I’m happy where I am, but it’s nothing like I expected: My expectation: to be single, traveling the world, photographing far off places and writing about them for a well known publication. To affect the people who came in contact with my work.
Obviously this hasn’t happened. It was replaced by something else: Completely different, but just as good.I went to college, got a job (not at all the one I dreamed of), got married to my high school sweetheart, bought a house in the town where we grew up, and tried starting a family. Here’s how it all went awry: I planned on staying at my job only until we got married, that was 2 ½ years ago, then it was only until we had kids, we’ve been trying for 2 years. I’m still at the same job.
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