I know 24 is still considered to be quite young, but lately when I look at my life I feel like it's flying past me and I'm not really doing what I want to do with my time. I'm starting to want things I thought I'd never want and realizing what's important. Sooo cliche, I know but it's honest.
I still need to finish school. Most people my age are graduates already, and I'm sitting on 2 Associate of Arts degrees and a job at the mall. I need to finish my bachelor's degree and I stress out when I think about how old I'll be when I finally finish those last years. Although I wish I could already have that piece of paper in hand, I know that waiting and going to FIDM was the right choice for me at the time. I got to indulge my inner artist, have a little mini visual career that I would never trade, and it gave me time to figure out what I love before naming it as a major. If I had gone to college straight out of high school I can almost guarantee that whatever major I selected would no longer hold the same appeal. I would've picked graphic design or english or sociology or art history or something that wouldn't secure a job anywhere. So I'm glad to be making this choice later in life, because I know I'm making the right one this time. Then there's the money... I'll need to take out a loan and I'll need lose my full-time job in exchange for a shitty paying part-time job somewhere. Both ideas cause instant anxiety, but finishing my degree is priority number one right now. And I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about not working full-time for a little while. I miss being a student and only working 20 hours a week. It will be a nice change of pace :)
The 21 year old version of myself was adamantly against marriage and children. I swore that I would never be a wife or a mother. I think I was still so pissed off about how parent's marriage went and the problems I saw my friends experience within their own families both just compounded and scared me away from the idea of starting my own little family to screw up one day. I wanted to be independent, to travel, to do whatever I wanted and answer to nobody. But I don't feel like that anymore. The idea of not having my own family just feels lonely now, and the thought of living and dying without a family is too sad to bear. Pat has a lot to do with me singing a different tune. With the other guys I've dated I always knew that they were not forever kind of relationships. I knew there was something basic and fundamental about our personalities that just wouldn't be able to tolerate each other long term. But with Pat, I feel such an intense and deep connection that I know we'll always be together. I am more in love every single day and our bond is untouchable. He spends the holidays with my family and it's like he was always meant to be there. We talk about engagements and weddings and babies and where we'd like to raise our family and it feels so incredibly natural. It doesn't scare me to think about this future with Pat, it makes me excited and giddy and impatient to have it all already. I can't imagine having this sort of family dream with anyone else...I never wanted it at all, until I fell in love with him. Now I look at my re-aligned vision of what I'd like to accomplish in my life and things seem so different.
24 seemed so young if all I was going to do was travel and party and work and just be whatever I want to be.
But 24 seems like it's creeping a little to close for comfort to the "old" side of life when I realize how far off I am from finishing school, establishing myself in a new career and starting a family. I don't want to be 30 when I finish my degree, or 40 when I get married. Where is my time disappearing to?
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