It is crazy how difficult it can be to start writing again after taking a long break. Everything looks cheesy on the page and every idea either seems over dramatic or completely uninteresting. I want to be able to tell you guys about the best parts of my summer, about how many awesome camping trips and friends I got to connect with, about the time I spent with my family, or about how much I LOVE having my own space to come home to. But I also want to be honest about the tough parts of my summer, about how scared I am that I’m wasting my time on a job that doesn’t encourage me or on craft projects for friends who I might not stay in touch with, about how I will always worry that my brother isn’t okay if I haven’t heard from him in three days, or about how badly I want to be a mother but how scared I am to end up in a bad relationship.
Everything in my life lately feels like a contradiction, like I’m caught in between doing things that make me happy and things that I think will make me happy in the future. And somehow nothing on either side feels right. I know this confusion is coming from turning 28 in a week, about no longer being able to see myself as a youth with all the time in the world, but as an almost thirty something whose life is only going to be as good as I make it.
I’m excited to get older, I really am, but I only it want it to happen if I do it right. I want to find a community I don’t want move from, find friends I don’t have to censor myself around, find a job I feel respected in. I can’t wait to be 35 or 45 or even 90, as long as I don’t look back at those years with regret. But for the life of me I can’t tell if the way I’m living now is good enough or, what’s worse, if it ever will be.
I know I’m doing a lot of things right and I’m so incredibly grateful for so many moments I’ve had this year, but when I tried to casually talk about myself last week to a friend I found myself getting caught up in the word happy, barely getting it out like I was saying an I missed you to someone I didn’t mean. I’m not unhappy, and I’m always excited for the things in my life yet to come, but happiness is such a huge, magic thing that if I’m honest with myself I don’t think I’ve reached.
I don’t struggle to see that there are hundreds of things I can do now or tomorrow to get me closer to that state of being, but what I can’t figure out is how to prioritize them. There is only so much time in a day, a week, a month. How do I decide whether more time at the gym, or growing my career or finding better relationships is more worth my time? I know I don’t have to choose, or even stick to one attempt, but I want to make conscious choices to better myself and in everything I do it always seems to come back to there is too much to do and too little time.
As I come to the end of my PhD I have been a lot of the same feelings. This is a bit of a major life landmark for me, and as such it has made me think more than usual about my life and future. Is academia really want I want? I feel a bit oppressed by continual busyness and stress. I don’t want to live my whole life in a hurry, feeling late and inadequate. But would something else, for instance spending 9-5 at a job that I don’t find particularly exciting or fulfilling really be better? I honestly don’t know where the path of wisdom lies. But I do know that no matter what we pick, now is the best moment.