I want it all………….

I want a house (with a yard or at least a deck), dog, kids, I want to have the role as wife and mother.  But at the same time, I want to be Carrie Bradshaw in Sex In the City, where my biggest concerns is where I’m meeting my (currently non-existent) Seattle girlfriends for drinks after shopping all day for the next hot trend (ha! with what money?). 

Hello conflict. 

I want a house without the responsibility of the mortgage.  I want the family, without having to settle down and give up being free and single.  I want a boyfriend (and maybe eventually a husband – maybe!) while still having the ability to “do what I want”. I want to cook and craft in between the time I’m away traveling the world.  I want to be skinny, but don’t want to work out & watch what I eat. Oh, and I want to earn a college degree, so I can finally move on from being a secretary and get a job doing something I truly love and I’m passionate about. But I can only go in the evenings and weekends since I have to work to pay for my current life that I’m never satisfied with because I’m too busy daydreaming of what my life could be or (I'm embarrassed to admit) obsessing over what other people have.  

It’s exhausting. 

In order to be happy, at some point, I need to settle, but I think one of my biggest fears is settling! 

Do I have the “grass is always greener syndrome”?  Am I capable of being happy?  My ex-husband says no, and I’m at times I agree.  I wanted a dog, a ring, a house, a wedding – and I got all of that.  I actually picked out the dog, the ring, the house…. And once I had it, once it was all mine, I didn’t want it anymore.  When all said and done, it was not what the picture had looked like from the outside.  I mean, of course there was more to it.  It’s never that cut and dry.  

I want to have kids.... I'm 32......  I feel the clock a tickin!  :)  It's hard because I plan my life TO DEATH.  It's hard to live in the present when I can't stop thinking about the future and all I want to do... finish school, have kids, travel the world.  They all seem to affect one another!  I wish I could be more "go with the flow" - Like "oops, I'm prego" vs.  "I want to get pregnant within the year, so we need to get a bigger apartment, with 2 bedrooms blah, blah, blah" ..... The cart is ALWAYS before the horse and I'm always in "hurry up and wait mode"!

New Jen, New City, Fresh start…..  and same wants…and same fears…. Will I make the same mistakes?  Did I learn?  How is this time different? 

My aunt said this to me: “We only have so much control, and I think that's over our own growth and personal behaviors, and even that's really hard. Everything outside of that we have absolutely no control over.”

I’m ecstatic (most the time) with my new life in my new city.  But a change of scenery isn’t enough.  It’s something that I need to continue to work on.  And it’s not going to happen over night.  It’s choosing to focus on the positive.  It’s making the choice to be happy, to be satisfied, to be positive, to live in the present.  It’s taking things I’m interested in and actually doing something with them.  Whether it’s practicing yoga or learning to meditate or going back to school or traveling my new state or losing weight/getting in shape/being healthy, instead of talking about it, or thinking about it, it’s time to DO something about it. It’s about making it a priority, finding the motivation, the passion, the time to invest.  I made it to Seattle, it only took 10+ years of talking about moving out of Cleveland, for it to actually happen.  But I did it, and I would say so far I'm pretty successful! 

Destiny is not a matter of chance, but of choice. Not something to wish for, but to attain.
- William Jennings Bryan