i’m getting older and still no plan
No longer child’s play: I still don’t know where I’m heading.
9/18/06
I just turned 37, which is way closer to 40 than I ever imagined myself getting. That’s not to say that I didn’t think I’d make it to 40, it’s just to say that I’ve never imagined myself getting this old.
In reality, 37 feels about the same as 27 did. Only older.
It’s one more example for me that life is somehow a circular thing. No matter how far I go, how much I change or stay the same, how different my life circumstances turn out to be, I always somehow end up in the exact same place. It’s like the Mayan theory of time passage. So what’s the point of moving ahead, other than sheer boredom?
What I feel differently now amounts close to panic. That is the difference between 27 and 37. In both cases, I definitely felt the pressure of time running out. Only now I have ten years added to that – with all the same have-nots in my life, and I still have no plan. And it’s no one’s fault but my own.
11/2/02
Why do I feel like so much time is passing me by? It slips like water through my fingers – cold and invisible, it drips away until there is nothing left but the memory of it.
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Related articles
- The Interesting Aspects of Getting Older (sfgate.com)
- Whats in my heart? (lifefulloflove2110.wordpress.com)
steadily skipping stones 
Since it’s now 2011, I’m curious to know how you feel now compared to those past two journal entries.
For whatever reason, I don’t feel the level of (self-inflicted) pressure that I did when I wrote that. Nothing substantial in my life has really changed, but the panic I felt is also gone. Maybe those feelings have been replaced with resignation.
How I hate to see that. Even as I typed, I wanted to delete, backspace, erase that word – resignation. But to a large extent, it’s true. Here’s another word: Acceptance. I haven’t mastered that one yet. But I’m working on it. There’s acceptance that some things need to change, acceptance that it will be hard work. And there’s acceptance that some things are actually okay and I need to stop worrying about them.
Ultimately, it amounts to mentally letting go of some of my expectations. That’s not very easy, but it’s realistic and it is healthier in the long run. What good does it do me to dwell on what I don’t have, what I desperately wanted but will most likely never have? Never say never. But I don’t hang all my dreams of a happy future on the same hooks as I once did.
Some of those feelings are just recurring cycles in my life. I felt panic at 31, but calm at 32. I felt panic at 37, but it went away that time too. To be honest, what I feel now is more like unease. I feel that, for the first time, I am ready to make some changes. I have felt almost ready before, I have felt the desire before, I have thought I was ready before, but this time… I am trying so hard to step out of the shell of who I have been, to break through these multiple layers of discomfort and fear that hold me back from being who I could be. It is a constant struggle. That’s where the unease comes from – can I do it? Will I give up?
As for the other one, from 2002, I’ve felt that way for as long as I can remember. Time is a desperate thief, he’ll steal everything you’ve got. I will never forget, when my nephew was about one and a half we took him to see my Nannie, his great-grandmother. She commented on how big he was getting. She said, “It goes by so fast.” It struck me…hard. 86 years old, and “it goes by so fast”. Don’t it though? So why do I let so much time pass by without changing the things about myself, my life, that aren’t working? That’s kind of the point of some of those Revisiting Old Journals (more to come). I need to remind myself that, for some of these things, it’s way past time to break the cycle. I don’t want to be 42 and feeling panic. I want to turn 42 feeling hopeful and good and happy. One down, two to go.
This has been on my mind off and on today. I’m coming to the conclusion that my body is every bit of 41, but my soul is and may always be about 28. My maturity fluctuates, but it’s not as old as it ought to be. Ever. My mental capacity has been going in the wrong direction for years and years, and I’m afraid it’s dipping into the negative digits some days. So I guess what I’m saying is there are a whole lot of people in here. And they’re all okay in their own ways.
Yep. You’re only as good as you choose to feel.