I’m Afraid of What I Want And How Much Time I Have To Get It

I frequently spend time thinking about what I want. Not always what I want for dinner, but what I want out of my life. What kind of work do I want to do in my life? What are my goals? What are the short-term and long-term plans? What are the non-negotiable things? Am I working towards these things? How much time is left? I seem to think about these things the most when I’m really stressed about what I’m currently doing either at home or at work.

One of my big flaws when I’m stressed out is my immediate need to find a solution out of it. I don’t usually act on my hasty decisions, but I do have the thoughts. Be it applying for random jobs, looking at apartments in the middle of nowhere, it’s because I feel this anxiety all over my body that tells me that I have to fix the stressful situation right now.

My Mom always says, ‘It’s not a race,” in reference to basically everything. Specifically to all my peers who took Their Own Path when approaching college and life plans. I try and remind myself of that message almost every day, but I can’t help but play the tape of my life forward and find hiccups.

I want to live to be really, really old. Well, I want to live to be as old as I want to be if that makes sense. If I get tired of the whole deal, I’m gonna peace on my own terms.

In the end, I want to feel like I made an impact. I want to know that at least a few people left walking all over this great blue planet know I existed. I think about that all the time when I realize I’ve become a regular at a 7-Eleven or when I think about people I’ve met traveling. I think “that’s just one more person on this planet who knows me.” It’s silly, but I want to feel like I changed something and made it better. I don’t want to just sneak-off, if that makes any sense.

I want to love what I’m doing. I love Obvi so much and want to dedicate my life to making the world a better, happier and safer place to be a woman. Some days Obvi is the most stressful thing hanging over my head on top of a million other responsibilities and some days it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. Whenever it feels like a burden I get really angry, because it’s the thing I want to prioritize and I don’t like it taking a back seat. If it was the only energy I surrounded myself with I know I would be so happy. The process of getting to that point, though, is a rough one because it isn’t set in stone and it can’t go on forever. There are so many exciting steps, risky steps, we want to be taking this year and I sometimes just think, Who do I think I am believing I can pull this off?

I want to be a mom. This is something I didn’t know I wanted until recently and now I have been basically obsessing over the whole idea. The reality is, there is a definitive time limit on that plan because I want to get preggers, pop it out myself, the whole nine. I understand there are back-ups and I’d be open to trying them if necessary, but my family history leads me to believe I’ll be a fertile myrtle like the rest of the women in my family, and my actual ability to become pregnant shouldn’t be a problem. The real problem? Drying-up and missing the chance. If you think about it, while they say there’s no “perfect” age to have a baby, most things I’ve read say it’s smart to get it in before turning 35, not only for babies’ health but for mom’s as well. That is 11 years from now. I’ve had one real relationship, my adventures with dating have been what’s best described as a constant buzzkill and I have basically no money. So I’m starting from scratch on that road. I can feel how crazy this all sounds, but 11 years to me sounds like NOTHING. I’ve caught myself looking up costs and places where I could preserve my eggs, ya know, just in case.

I can re-read this essay in a perfectly healthy state of mind and understand how neurotic these things sound, but even then I can’t help but find some validity behind the frenzy. I don’t know many people who Love what they do every day. I know a LOT of people who don’t do anything ever besides work at a job that their heart isn’t in. I don’t know many people who are so happily married, but I know a LOT of people who are secretly miserable or who are divorced or who have been divorced multiple times.

Sometimes it’s a lot easier to come up with reasons why things can’t happen than to come up with reasons why they can. And when it comes down to it, I just want to be old and happy and have procreated, some basic human needs. And when I think, Well, what’s going to stop me? the only thing I come up with is Time.

By Mary Kate Pleggenkuhle

Originally published at obviweretheladies.com on February 23, 2016.