When I think about all the things I wanted to do (but didn't) when I got to the age when I could actually decide, it doesn't make me sad. At fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, whatever age it is when Santa Claus delivers those fortune telling skills with the murky ball, my goals were rather naive. Granted, I didn't have the internet to give me a lot of instant answers, but I went to college knowing I wanted something else than what my little town offered. However, going to the college in my little town didn't afford me the luxury of making my decisions any more realistic, nor my powers of intuition any more direct.
So, at what point am I "grown up?" Is it when I have achieved all those goals I set out to accomplish? Or, is it when I am smart enough to give up on those goals that were always to be out of reach, to settle for a more achievable and realistic goal?
Well, my goals were actually pretty simple and not so creative. I wanted to get my Ph.D. in English, write highly successful books of poetry, find another poet, get married and have kids. I also wanted to live in a big, renovated farm house so that magazine writers could interview me on the front porch, black and white pictures on the front page with my giant crocuses in the background.
But were these really MY goals? Did I not just rip them out of Sylvia Plath's life, or my thesis advisor from graduate school? The thing that is disappointing about goals is that usually they evolve from someone else's percieved goals. But were their goals even really what THEY wanted to achieve? Maybe they actually groan when they think about all they could have achieved had they just followed the path they planned for themselves.
Being grown up has nothing to do with achieving goals or accepting what comes. After all, we spend close to 60% of our lives as adults.
Imagine ladies you are in your favorite department store. You've scored dozens of cute outfits on sale and are going to try them on. Some are too tight; some are not for your body shape. Some don't really work with your age or style. But, in trying those dozens of outfits, you come away with one that fits your personality, your style, your body. And, you can think of at least two places you can wear it. When you walk in it, it boosts your confidence. You are the best you can be in this outfit. You have no fears, no reservations, no doubts.
The willingness to try things that aren't your style, that don't fit your personality is what being grown up really is. After all, as one of those ominous but great "people" say: you don't know what you want, until you know what you don't want.
That is why I am not sad that my goals have not been met. My list of what I don't want is getting longer, but my list of what I want is getting shorter. And crocuses are NOT on the short list.
