I’m going to be 35 next year and I have not read enough books. This may be incorrectable at this point. I’ve got too many movies, sitcoms, TV commercials, pop songs, bumper stickers, magazine adds, comic books, bad jokes and music videos rattling around in my brain, influencing me to make bad decisions.
I’m going to be 35 next year and I have never directed a feature film. I’ve never written a novel or a book length anything. I’ve never acted professionally. I’ve never been published in a major news paper. I’ve never been in a rock band. I’ve never been to Europe or a dozen other things I thought I would have done by now. I’ve come close on some of these but I’ve retired all those tales because nothing identifies a loser like stories of the things he almost did.
I’m also unmarried and childless and that needs to change in the next 5 years or so. However, that makes me feel immense pressure to get as many of the things in the first paragraph done as possible in the next five years before marriage and children and a mortgage makes them improbable for 18-20 years.
I’m just coming to grips with the fact that I’m never going to be the guy I thought I wanted to be when I was 21 and even if I could flip a switch and be that guy, right now today, I wouldn’t. I missed my window and what seemed cool at 21 does not seem cool at 35. Thankfully. Hey, I had 14 years, right?
I guess I need to figure out what’s cool at 35 and worrying about being that guy. Hey, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
You have done most of what I had to wait till I was over 40, and now over 50 to do…….
I waited to long to be the person I had dreamed of being
The best of what you have to do, and want to do is ahead of you, bigger, better, greater
I’m sure children are over-rated! Go do all that stuff! then if you really want em’ adopt em, we’re overpopulated anyway.
I haven’t read as many books as I’d like, but even still when people ask me what I’ve read, my brain freezes up and I can’t think of any, when I’ve easily read hundreds and hundreds.
So now that you’ve gotten out that short list of what you haven’t achieved… how about that long list of what you have? I’ve read enough of your journal to think you’re an amazing person.
Thirty-five
I’m going to be 43 next year. I’ve acted professionally, lived in Europe, dated members of rock bands, and been married twice. Now, I live here, I’m divorced, broke, and working my immortal day job (those skills I fell back on). But life is life, with or without doing all those things you thought you’d do by now. The vast majority of us are not where we thought we’d be, haven’t done what we thought we’d do, and haven’t become who we thought we’d become. Take heart, there’s time. You’re on track to be who you’re supposed to be. So we’re not the wunderkind. Perhaps we’re late bloomers. And to quote Maya, I “wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.” And if it makes you feel any better, you have a sister who adores you and thinks you’re the coolest cat around.