Future perfection...is NOT attainable.

I get inspired to write very arbitrarily, sometimes. My urge to do so will just pop up because of a thought, a word [or two] read, a song heard, a voice spoken; anything. This entry was inspired by a blog I came across as I was blog surfing [I need to come up with a portmanteau for that; blurfing? Ew. No. Back to the drawing board. Anyhoo...] & I subsequently dwelled on its point[s] here & there.

Ever since I've been with Joshua [which is almost 5 1/2 years now, just thought you'd like to know...again. ^_^], I've constantly been dreaming about the future--both day & night. I've gone from large details to insignificant, trivial little aspects that won't really matter that much. I think this has consumed me, to be honest. Along with being a perfectionist & my drive to attain perfection, the combination of frequently contemplating & planning out the future & perfectionism has NOT produced productive results. If anything, it holds me back.

This blog I read dealt with the former; the writer spoke about her unremitting pace with dwelling about the future rather than living in the present & dealing with whatever occurs when it occurs. Tackling future aspirations & living in the existing world is so exhausting because I find myself getting so caught up & lost in what will happen later on [even if it's only an hour or so later] that I start to lose focus of what is going on presently. This happens with EVERYTHING in my life now. I notice that my school assignments are becoming more & more consuming because I'm constantly thinking of next week or the next two weeks rather than the assignment I'm currently working on.

Back to Joshua & our relationship, this obviously affects that [BIG] part of my life. I have a feeling this whole "future forward" way of thinking stems back to our relationship, albeit I don't believe that it initially began for anything bad. Instead, I think it was just pure joy & excitement to be with someone like that; someone who made me feel that wonderful. Being 15, I was still REALLY naive. [I'm probably still REALLY naive at 20. Haha.] I was envisioning every single part of the future. My plan [emphasis on 'my'] was to be engaged by...well, now. Haha. I wanted to be engaged by 20, a little bit before our 5-year anniversary & I wanted a two-year long engagement [a year of thinking about how we wanted the wedding to be & a year of making it happen]; this would lead to a wedding in 2011 after we graduated from college; preferably on our seven-year wedding anniversary [December 8th, 2011]. We'd wait at least two or three years to have kids & our first child would be born when we would either be 23 or 24. By that time, I would already be an AMAZING journalist working for a top wedding magazine & Joshua would be on his way to becoming a licensed psychologist & getting his Ph.D [all of this was prior to our high school graduation in 2007]. We would live in Spain in a beautiful, big Spanish villa overlooking the Mediterranean with our three wonderful children & life would be happy & grand by 29. The future was wonderful...in my head.

Erasing all the fantasies & bringing everything back down to reality, we are not engaged & I do not see us getting married in two years [unless I become pregnant randomly or we just...get married. Haha]. Joshua doesn't want to be a psychologist anymore: this has changed from neurologist to pharmacist to maybe pharmacist to pharmacist again as of Wednesday afternoon. I still [shockingly] have kept my aspirations of becoming a journalist working for a wedding magazine. I don't want to live in Spain anymore with our family [I see it as more of a place I'd like to retire to], but I have stayed faithful to Western Europe [France or England, anyone?]. The older I've gotten, the more fearful I am about children, so I don't know if we'll even have three or even any. This fear isn't due to lack of parental aptitude to raise them or a deficiency in maternal instincts. My fear is that I won't be able to have any at all. I don't have any concrete evidence for this; it's just a feeling of mine [women's intuition]. It's difficult to get pregnant [seriously, those who do become pregnant after that "one time" are lucky; or unlucky, depending on how you look at it] as it is, so that doesn't really aid in quelling my fears. Joshua knows about this & he's reassured me time & time again that it won't happen & that if there are complications, we'll do whatever it takes. [I'm so glad I've been blessed with that man. His strength & positivity is so unabounding.]

I was so excited for the next five years of my life at the very young age at 15. And the next 10 years after those five years. Now that I'm 20 years old & my plans have drastically changed, I realize that planning as exhaustively & extensively as I did was in vain. It slightly pains me to say that because, of course, I had these anticipations & expectations that didn't happen [yet]. At the same time, it's relieving. I read a quote from a Tumblr page that said: "Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't ever happen. It just means you're not ready yet." That quote spoke volumes upon volumes to me. I have a lot of growing to do. WE have a lot of growing up to do. I'm not ready or matured yet to experience these life-altering things. [And just because you are experiencing them doesn't mean you're fully ready for it, either.]

Although it's slightly caustic to realize these not-so-great things about myself, it definitely contains its sweetness because it shows me that I AM growing; I'm maturing & being cognizant of things that need to evolve within myself. That awareness is maturity in a nutshell: realizing you're still young & screwing up, so you need to change that. I've planned out too much of my life that I've lost sight of what awesome things happened around me because I was too impatient for what would happen later on. Equally, being a perfectionist has destroyed this as well; I would spend my time planning this "perfect life" instead of living this beautiful, imperfect life that God has given me. I've learned that being a perfectionist has no goal. Because I've been this way, I'm never satisfied. I always need more: more out of myself, more out of my relationship with Joshua, more out of everyone I interact with. I can't ever be happy with what I'm given. And looking ahead, I always think that I WILL get this paragon of perfection out of everyone & everything. I now realize that it is impossible.

Living in the now & loving what you're living & who you're living with is the key to life's happiness. I'm mentally shaking myself now to quit daydreaming about the future & let it be, along with trying to have a perfect everything. Because those little flaws give life character & will keep it interesting. If I lived a totally perfect life, I'm sure that will get boring quickly. I get bored quickly. God I have so many flaws. Haha.

PS: Whoever reads this [which I only think is one], sorry this entry was long. And I KNOWWWWWW I've been saying that I would do a "Loves in Life" entry set, but that's been held off for this entry. Haha. Hopefully my next blog[s] will be those posts. But you never know. (=