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| what being 21 and living on an island looked like |
In the winter of 2007, as that relationship was coming to a messy boiling point, you might say, I did this thing where, through a website, you wrote a letter (email) to your future self - I don't recall if you could choose the how far in the future you wanted it to arrive, but I did three years out. And then, of course, I forgot about having done this shortly thereafter.
I received that email as a third year teacher, two years into a relationship with my now wife. My interest in babies of my own was entirely nonexistent - laughable, really (honestly, I was baffled the letter even mentioned babies) - and the idea of being almost 25, married to this guy (any guy!), and having recently had a baby - all things I said in this email time capsule - were ridiculous, borderline unfathomable, to me. What must have seemed like everything to me at one point in life can so rapidly change... or, you can have the same plan in life for years and years and have to have some real tough conversations with yourself to alter course. I've lived (and am still living) both.
When I was a little girl, I had so, so many big goals and ideas of what my "happy ending" required... I was going to own an island (yes, that very same island that I met a boy on and almost threw away my college education and everything else I’d worked so hard for in life), be an author/illustrator of children's books while also teaching art, be a Hollywood actress, and the most ambitious (yet longest lasting) goal I held - powerful lawyer turned President of the United States. Naturally I was barely double digits and I didn’t know how I was going to make any of those things happen, but there was a time when I thought success equated to some pretty lofty goals. I never dreamed of being a mom or getting married - I thought fluffy white dresses were cool and I had kittens when I got an American Doll one year for Christmas, but neither of those were indicative of my desire for that in real life. Just not my thing, you know?
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| all. the. plans. |
How wrong I was. My cut and dry “of course this over after we graduate, I got shit to do, places to go” was so, so naive. My overly intellectual little brain had no idea what my heart was capable of. I had already hit the rest button on my vision of a successful life (including what my goals were and precisely what happiness looked like) a few times in my first eighteen years of life (e.g. if you can't summon the courage to audition for a community theatre play, probably not going to make it anywhere close to "Hollywood"). But the summer before college rattled my understanding of myself, considerably. Without trying, I stumbled upon the fact that love is not something my heart does or takes lightly. And much like my youngest child, I love hard and fully. I was not, in fact, someone who could only focus on my career and everything it would take to get there. Turns out, humans mattered to me - something that was immediately playing out in terms of love and a relationship, but ultimately played out in much, much bigger ways in terms of my career, and really, my entire life, my passions, and everyone in it.
For better or for worse, not everyone loves in the same way, and people are unique and have their own paths to take, as was the case with my first love. As for me, I went off to Chicago for school and found a whole new world of humans to explore, connect with, learn new things from, and love. My world had briefly been turned upside down - it was one of the first times I became aware of just how much my view of the world and what felt like clear, strong plans for my life could be turned upside down in a heartbeat - but I was back.
Oh come on! No I wasn’t. My hopes and dreams for life were altered - love and relationships mattered to me now in ways I had never (ever) factored in to my dreams and visions of success in life. I couldn't go back from that. My whole vision for what mattered to me in life was reset. Within a few months of starting college I started to fall in love again with someone I couldn’t even have imagined existed in high school - which is not to say he was the perfect match or even a more perfect match (clearly), but his insane intelligence, shared and seemingly novel interests, and handful of other things (including, probably, the fact that he was older and about to graduate) made him seem unreal to my eighteen year old self. I fell so incredibly hard, and suddenly my goals were being altered - I was still hell bent on being an incredibly successful lawyer, but I saw marriage and a traditional Christmas-carol worthy midwestern life in my “made it” dreams - something I had never even considered. Within eight months I was engaged. I had a whole new plan for life. It happens fast.
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| "the college years" |
Without belaboring the college years (pictures say a thousand words, anyway, right?), it can suffice to say there was a constant reset of life goals - including the summer after my 3rd year in college which I opened this post with. Ultimately, thanks to extremely loving and simply incredible roommates (whom both double as a sibling and bestie for life) in that final year, I was able to find at least one tree through a very foggy and overgrown forest - which was successfully becoming a corps member and getting a job as a teacher (at the school in which I would go on to meet my partner in crime for all things in life).
My then life goal of law school, joining a firm, and eventually becoming a partner was put on hold. I'd seen educational equity at play, firsthand, my whole life, and through the college years was able to make sense of that in the context of educational opportunity and access. My passion for kids and desire to be part of the fight for educational equity - without yet understanding my own privilege - was taking my nice, crisp and clean life plan and body slamming it. Within months of starting my life as a teacher I had a drastically different understanding of the world and what I wanted my role in it to be. I wasn’t going to be a teacher forever, but I could never forget about my experience and pretend like I didn’t understand. I knew the newly evolving life plan involved putting to use my experience and attempting to spend the unearned privilege I have as a white woman in this country.
Now, that wasn’t simple and clean either. By the end of my first year of teaching, shortly after turning 22, I found myself in a relationship with a woman. Yes, that was new. My definition of and understanding of love was being redefined (in the most beautiful, "I finally feel whole" kind of way). Not surprisingly, my personal life and family goals were being re-evaluated and quickly resetting, right along side my professional plans.
Not only did “making it” no longer include a husband (although let’s be honest, I have deeply internalized heteronormative culture and indeed, it took a long time for my conscious brain and subconscious brain get on the same page there and accept an alternative picture of what a happy ending looks like), but I couldn’t get married, even if I wanted to. What was I aiming for now? It was complicated. I wasn’t sure (on any front).
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| a micro-example of resetting expectations: my well-planned marriage proposal. |
More mess ensued - for awhile. At some point in between a trip to buy engagement rings where my ring finger began having sharp, throbbing pains on the way home and our wedding (a solid 3 year gap there, to be clear), my happy ending evolved into one with a(n incredible) wife, a spouse who was almost two decades older than me, owning a real house, a reliable savings account, two dogs, the ability and means to travel whenever and wherever, and a developing career in education nonprofit (with side hustles and entrepreneurial dreams settling into the holes that were once filled with things I’d already achieved). While not even close to what I had envisioned in some ways, it was objectively a solid place to be in life. I still had too many ambitions to feel anywhere close to having "made it" - but life was amazingly fun - filled with exceptional friends and family, love, financial security, and new experiences.Then, in a surprise move that still makes me do a double take to this day, out of fucking (potentially unnecessary but seriously, WTF) nowhere this whole other “thing” came into play. Just when I was about feel like I’d reached some sort of mid 20s peak, I went from having zero desire to have babies/be a mom to it being the biggest gaping hole in my life - seemingly overnight. How does that even happen? (Though, if you really want to ponder a shocker, imagine being forty-five and also feeling this way out of the blue - even if the biological pull was slightly different - suddenly desiring this whole extra piece of life that didn’t even fit anywhere because it was never supposed to be part of the picture/happy ending/“you’ve made it” landing pad).
Of course, again, shortly after realizing this new and pretty significant additional goal and dream in life, it was put out of reach. After a year of expensive IUIs and loss, I discovered my tubes had zero intention of ever making us moms without the intervention of very expensive science and drugs. Again, I (though this time it was a we, thankfully) spent a summer reevaluating goals and testing my happy ending criteria. Are there hundreds of other ways to be fulfilled, successful, and happy in life that don’t involve children? Absolutely (probably far more than those that do involve children, if we are being totally honest...) (half kidding... but remember). Did all of those sound nice? Yes. Did it matter? Nope.
No matter how much I convinced myself of all the other amazing paths life could take and other goals and dreams I could have, instead, it wasn’t “it.” My heart was set. It didn’t matter that two years prior I hadn't even considered the possibility of children as ever being part of my life (outside of incredible nieces, nephews, and the like, of course). It didn’t matter that I could easily think about all the lovely, appealing things I was giving up in the short term by attaching myself to this narrow definition of a happy ending - including copious amounts of money as well as time, ownership of my body, and just simple freedom, to some degree (and very acutely so in terms of the actual process, short term).
And boom, like that, once again, my ever-shifting vision of what it will like to have “made it” morphed again. We decided to go through with pursuing IVF and I immediately re-attached my version of success to this new expectation of successfully becoming a mom (to be clear, not saying that was a healthy orientation - only being honest). And, in a turn of events that I am forever grateful for and still in awe of, I did become a mom, and in the most excessive fashion, by having two babies, not just one. For nine straight months I never once took my pregnancy for granted given all the risks and complications, and as such, didn't allow myself to even begin to imagine life with children until the very end (which yes, makes me have all sorts of regrets about my pregnancy). I turned 30 and two weeks later pushed two alien looking tiny little humans out of my body (again, in the most excessive fashion - at one point having upwards of ten to twelve doctors and nurses in my room as chaos ensued once the babies were out). I was in an exhausted stupor for weeks following, so I won't lie and say I was setting new goals and planning out a life that included a "plus two" once I met the little people. We were attempting to survive. I was crying in a bathtub while my mom held my hand. Sleeping for more than one hour was the only happy ending I needed or cared about. (But yes, eventually my children started sleeping, I started sleeping, we all started sleeping and we began to imagine life as a family of four and discussed all our dreams for what that would look like over the years - and still do, as it's ever-evolving with two little humans who surprise us daily). Love was, however, immediately redefined for me - even through a dense haze of exhaustion. My understanding of and expectation for love expanded into an entirely new dimension, full of new lessons and challenges I would eventually traverse (and am, daily).
At the same time as all this baby confusion unfolded, I started struggling professionally - not sure about what I was doing with my life and wondering about all the paths I didn't take. We would joke about how when the wifey signed up for this whole relationship I was still headed to law school and was supposed to be making the big bucks by now. In reality, I was constantly second guessing my choices and feeling like I was so far from the professional place I had once held as my aspiration. I spent the last years of my twenties and first couple of my thirties always thinking about greener grass, somewhere. Yes, I had a mission driven job that I could do from anywhere in the country, got to travel to amazing new places beyond our borders, and had a solid income - but it was not what I planned. It wasn't the things my childhood dreams were made of - or even my college ones (although, let's be honest, based on everything shared above, probably best I don't put too much stock in anything I thought or did during that time in my life). I was constantly seeking a promotion and looking at other jobs - usually in education, still, but always wondering if I needed to just forget about it all - leave behind the whole concept of doing work with a purpose that I was deeply convicted and passionate about - and just take the plunge into the unknown in pursuit of "traditional" career success... the success I had always envisioned coming from being a lawyer, founding my own venture, or some high level executive in the corporate world. It was exhausting, and month after month, year after year, I felt like I was constantly falling short - just simply not enough.
Sometime last spring I was in the midst of this self-imposed rat race and I hit my breaking point. I was constantly unhappy in all things work - no matter how amazing life was at home, it didn't matter - I was an anxious, frustrated, low-confidence mess of a human which was spilling into being a second rate wife and mom, too. I don't know why or how it all washed over me so suddenly and acutely, but I remember coming upstairs from my basement office ("the cave"), sitting on the coach, and starting to talk aloud to myself. In no time, I was crying, which quickly turned into the kind of sobbing where I can hardly breathe and my body shakes. It was a violent cry, but a cleansing one. The things I was saying aloud - for the first time ever, in my entire life - were centered it being ok to just be happy with where I was. That constantly pursuing a promotion, higher title, more prestige (and more money) didn't have to define who I was anymore. That just because I had spent my life achieving did not mean that choosing to be happy with exactly where I was right now was settling or would make me "less than" or not enough. Just saying the words was both disorienting and freeing, and I wasn't even fully buying it yet. I started naming all the things in my life I have to be grateful for - that are, to an outsider, absolutely perfect. The list was long. I wondered aloud what it would feel like to be just be really happy with where I am at right now, and stop not just the worrying, but stop attaching my value to goals from a previous version of myself that weren't rooted in anything but what I saw others doing, and what I thought the strengths and gifts I was given and developed in life equated to in terms of success.
I spent a whole week withdrawn, randomly breaking out into sobs. The wifey was worried - I was worried. I couldn't string words together coherently for her, in order to explain - so she just had to wait. Every time I tried to let her in, I started crying and couldn't even get complete words out of my mouth. I was either on the cusp of a total and complete breakdown that would get worse before it got better, or this was my breakdown, and a much more free, content, and happy sense of self awaited me on the other side.
Thankfully, it was the latter. It was not immediate - in that moment I made the conscious decision to live in the present and stop chasing the future and running over every hill I could find in hopes of spotting greener grass on the other side - but you don't undo 33 years of a single personal narrative overnight, or even through a week of therapeutic tears. I spent the late spring and summer in a transition - trying desperately to embrace a new view of the world and myself, but also being tempted by old habits and patterns. Somewhere in the late summer months I had the right conversation at the exact right time with someone. It fully triggered my ability to let go and dig my heels into my reality, while not feeling like I was settling or giving up - holding fast to some dreams, but orienting to them in a very different way that would allow me to be present and fully appreciate the here and now.
Beyond accepting where I was in my career, I found ways to love my job and find the magic in every aspect of both it (including all the perks I wasn't appreciating) and the rest of my life. I turned into someone I am quite sure I have mocked at some point in my life (and still poke fun at myself, to be clear) - someone who starts their day with yoga, meditation, journaling, reading, and coffee.
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| "you're happy, mommy!" (part of the new "photos by ellie" series) |
At some point I started worrying less about a five- and ten-year career plan (which still makes me cringe just a little to say out loud) and more about leaning into my current roles in life - as a team leader and manager, as a wife, as a mom, as a daughter, sister, friend... and just as me, the approaching her mid-thirties girl who likes to make things, read and learn, and go on adventures. What does it look to just lean into each of those and find happiness - the kind of soul-freeing happiness that allows you to just be worry free and joyful af about right now?
The answer to that is what will eventually become my newest vision of having "made it" in life. It's not easily written in a document or checklist friendly, which feels so wrong to some parts of me, but so energizing to the rest. Furthermore, I'm quite sure my adventures in ever-changing life goals are far from over, so cheers to the unknown and schooling I'll get in the years ahead.
