over the hill

today i was asked what i hoped my life was like in 10 years. i remember getting that question in college and being able to babble on about my career, my house, my serious live-in boyfriend (marriage has never been high on my list of priorities). when you're 18, your mid-twenties seem like some distant enchanted land.

you'll have money to buy whatever you want! you can drink whenever - without ever getting carded! friends will have lavish wine parties where you'll talk politics and eat tiny hors devours with toothpicks!

some of these things are true, but drinking loses its glamour once you don't get carded trying to get a miller after work. sure gadgets are within reach, but disposable income is not as plentiful as one would think after bills and food. wine parties are fun, and there are toothpicks and little sandwiches, but the political talk always seems doused in $5 trader joes (or in most cases something in the $15 variety) and the next morning the only lasting effects are a hazy headache and gut rot.

don't get me wrong, i don't think i honestly could have imagined a better life if i would have tried. i'm happy, (relatively) healthy, and i have a great group of friends. i have a career i love, and i managed to move halfway across the country and find a new home. but in my mind there is no reason to answer the 10 year question. a year or two ahead, maybe more, but i have a hard time identifying with my peers who have a set plan for their lives down to what the next year will entail. i'm all about goals, but i just can't be that planful.

maybe that's why i need to live in ny. i'm surrounded by millions of people - many of which who are in a stage of arrested development. most of us are career focused and work very hard to achieve a level of success. there are plenty of examples of organized folks whose paths i can emulate when i am ready to be more organized, but this place allows me to be the norm rather than the exception for having no idea what the next year will have in store for me. sure i have goals, but i can take a few detours and never feel like i'm on the wrong path.