The older you get, the more realistic you become. While I still pride myself on my often unwavering optimism, realism has set in significantly more than it did ten or even five years ago. With each passing day, week, and year, you come to a greater understanding of simply what is. We spend most of our time trying to reconcile what is with what we would like it to be. We make sacrifices along the way. Sometimes we sacrifice our dreams after they have been crushed by the weight of reality. Sometimes we sacrifice conveniences because we simply cannot allow our dreams to fall by the wayside. Sacrifice is inevitable. The sacrifices we make are dependent upon our priorities.
I figured I’d be farther along by now. Here I am, on the verge of my twenty-seventh birthday, nowhere near the point that my younger self would have imagined me to be. When we are younger, we are highly idealistic. I quickly realized that it was imprudent and unrealistic to believe that by the age of 27 that I would be in the U.S. House of Representatives, that such a job was dependent upon resources and experience that someone that age could not feasibly acquire. Though I discarded those goals and my “twenty year plan” once I fell out of love with politics, I still had aspirations of where I would be by a certain point in time. By the time I turned 27, I believed I would be well-settled into a teaching job in a public school district, having obtained tenure by this point with sights on a department chair position. I believed I would be married to the woman of my dreams. We would be living in a nice (but not extravagant) house or townhouse by now and would be starting to think about expanding our family. Yet here I am, having exhausted most of my 20s with seemingly little more to show for myself than the scars of battle.
Maybe I feel this way because my life as a 26 year old was particularly challenging. It was a road littered with loss and disappointment. But I’m starting to think about things with a greater sense of urgency. Potential can only take you so far. A prospect only remains a prospect if there is production to back it up. Potential is a vehicle to take you to where you want to be, but it is not something that can sustain you. You have to produce.
I have always believed that perhaps my greatest attribute was not my intellect nor my humor or even my looks (insert haughty snicker here) but rather my ability to persist, to pick a goal and plug away at it until I got it. That attribute has certainly helped me. Without it, I would not have lost weight or run two marathons. I probably would have wound up as a substitute teacher or working at a retail job instead of getting my classroom back at AAA Academy after I got laid off. But the very thing that I believed made me special can also serve as one of my greatest hindrances to progress.
I’ve spent a long time waiting on the wrong people. That doesn’t mean that they were bad people. They were just the wrong people. Whether it’s holding onto the hope that people weren’t going to move on without me or believing that someone would see that I was the best option all along, my refusal to give up can cost me something newer and/or better. I don’t have a great group of friends that I hang out with on a regular basis these days. I didn’t want to replace the friends I did have despite seeing all the warning signs. I thought that 20 years of friendship had to count for something. It does, but they are little more than memories. Instead of holding on to what was, I might have been better served to follow their lead and pursue fresh starts and new opportunities.
Don’t even get me started on my dating pursuits. I spent a combined ten years on two girls, and I have very little to show for it aside from the occasional text message and like on my Instagram pictures. If it is meant to be, it will be, but it won’t require you sitting and earnestly waiting for it. I don’t know my story is going to end with the beautiful teacher who has caught my eye. Do I hope she’s “The One”? Absolutely! But whether or not she is or isn’t “The One” is something I don’t know yet. If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that nothing is guaranteed no matter how amazing she is and how perfect of a match we would be. What I do know is had I not finally realized that things with Jannelle were a dead end, I never would have met her in the first place and wouldn’t be having ridiculous dreams about her walking down the aisle dancing to that Pharrell Williams song.
If you think that I conceived this post with the primary purpose of feeling bad for myself that I haven’t reached my goals, you would be incorrect. As I stated earlier this year, there have been only three things I really wanted in my life. One of them finally happened this year. Maybe the others will fall into place. For the first time in a long time, I have faith that they will. But maybe they won’t. I’m finally learning that life does not and will not adhere to my timeframes. And for the first time, I’m okay with that.
I don’t know what is to come, but I’m excited to get there. I’m not afraid of not meeting my own expectations anymore. I don’t need to look at my “prime” in terms of an athlete’s career. My life (hopefully) won’t be over by the time I am 40, so I don’t need to try to cram everything into my life as quickly as possible. When things are meant to occur, they will. I just don’t have sit around worrying and waiting for them anymore. It’s okay to leave things behind. There’s a difference between giving up and letting go. I’ve fought the good fight. There are simply newer, bigger, and better fights for me to fight these days.
I have a good feeling about turning 27…
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