Y'know, this brings to mind what I wanted for my life, what I expected my life to be, by the time I got to be in my 60's.
And it's interesting. My life at 65 bears almost NO resemblance to what I had envisioned for myself when I was young, and had hopes and dreams for my future. I wanted children, and had wanted them for as long as I can remember. I recall thinking when I was young, well if I don't find someone to marry me and have children with, I'll get pregnant anyway, or adopt, or get artificially inseminated, and I don't CARE what anyone thinks!!! (this was way back in the day when any of those scenarios would have been scandalous or at least highly unusual for a single woman!)
But other than that, there is no aspect of my life that is what I expected it would be. Nothing turned out like I hoped it would. I would marry just once, to a wonderful man, we'd have all these children, work hard to own our own home, raise the kids in it and then have it for them to return to and bring their children to when they grew up and got married. I would stay home and raise my babies, my husband would work hard to support us and I would support him by being an excellent homemaker and making things nice. We would retire in a timely manner, take little trips here and there, and I would be available to spend lots of time with the grandkids, bake cookies, go to all their school things, do all the quintessential grandmother stuff, wear my hair long and in a bun.
Did any of that happen. HELL NO! Yes, I had kids, and now grandkids. And I adore them and they me, and we are a very close family. But all the other stuff? Nope. Never owned my own home, never owned a new car, my husband was an abusive, nasty deadbeat who was capable of earning 6 figures but hated to work so I mostly supported us, working 6 and 7 day weeks at times. We moved around a lot, because he had such a wanderlust, or because we got evicted for non payment of rent, or because we had to dodge creditors. We moved across the country and back three different times, NONE of them of my choosing. We lived a nomadic, crazy life when all I wanted was normalcy.
I came into my own in my 50's, got divorced, and started to finally LIVE my life, on MY terms, and to hell with everyone, to hell with societal norms, to hell with what should be expected of me as an older woman, and to hell with what my hopes and dreams were when I was younger. None of that, other than my children, worked out the way I wanted it to. So what now? Sink into despair that my life didn't turn out the way I'd planned? Or make new goals?
I chose the second option. I trash canned all those things that I'd been holding onto, the goals and hopes and dreams and plans that I'd had, and that I'd been trying to make happen through the entirety of my disastrous 30 year marriage. Nope. Not gonna happen. It had been feeling for a long time like I was trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole, so I stopped trying.
Took stock. I was gonna have to work well into my 70's because of the financial ruin my ex had left me with, the mountain of debt, the disastrous credit score. Better get healthy then! Changed my diet, my way of life, my eating habits. Started to exercise. Started to train as a ballroom dancer. Hated my job, so became self employed as an organizer and personal assistant, things I LOVE to do and now I got to make money at them!!! What else? Always wanted some piercings, got them. Always wanted some tattoos, got them (work in progress still) Always wanted to cut my hair but my ex forbade me to get it cut, so I got a short, pixieish choppy cut, and turned the gray bits turquoise. Or pink. Or green, whatever.
The point? I grieved for a time over the loss of my hopes and dreams, and over the wretchedness that my life bore no resemblance to what I wanted for it. It didn't turn out at all the way I'd planned, and here I am mid 50's, my life more than half over, and so my life really IS over. Nothing left to do but wait for the end.
Finally, after wallowing a while, I put on my big girl panties and just dived in to make what was left of my life the best it could be. I live with regrets. Who doesn't? But I've learned that I regret far more the things I DIDN'T do than the things I DID do, even if they didn't turn out for the best. And so I wasn't going to NOT do things and then regret later that I hadn't done them. Much better to DO things!
So, lovetoswim, what are YOUR plans? What do you like to do? What are your aspirations at this juncture in your life? Trash your old plans, and make new ones! It's never too late!
