"...but choosing one meant losing all the rest"

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,... and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America,... and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."      -Sylvia Plath 

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| february & march |

Making decisions about the future is absolutely terrifying. Well, for me it is, anyway.  There's always so much to consider.

I was debating on how long I wanted to teach, if it's what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life, if I was going to be stuck here in Utah forever, if I should move.... and the list goes on and on. If any of you have dealt with anxiety or depression you know that these are normal thoughts about life that everyone has and deals with, but the anxiety and depression spins it out of control in your mind and consumes you.  You feel like your drowning; you're almost to the surface, you can see the light break through the water and you're trying so hard to reach it.  You'll get close, but something is pulling you back down.

We really don't need to get that deep into it, but after a few weeks of that torture I was just done with it. I had some good friends to talk to, and I just really had to figure some stuff out.
I have to do what makes me happy, but then I always consider what other people want me to do, what people I might leave behind, will I be missing out on something else that's better? What if I make a huge mistake and regret my decisions?  There's so many branches to consider in life. So many paths. One decision can alter everything. And quite honestly, I don't really know what I want.  

I know I want to travel and possibly get out of Utah for a little bit.

I want to take full advantage of my twenties, and I forget to do that A LOT.

I don't know if I want to get married. I know I don't want to any time soon (I'm only 24), but I wonder if I'll really care that much if it doesn't happen.

I even consider whether I want to have children or not one day.  It's not something I'm even close to thinking about right now, but sometimes I think about where I'll be in ten years and I'm not sure I see kids there.

Does that make me selfish? I don't think so, but other people- family- might.

Should I find somewhere to live permanently? Some people think I should, but I'm just too restless. I'm not ready to settle yet. 

But that's okay, I think.

I grew up in a place where it was the norm and almost expected to get married young, have children young, and settle down young. Having a family was considered to be at the top of the priority list. I'm not saying it's wrong if you get married young, it works for some people, but not every person. It doesn't work for me.

See what I mean? Crazy.  Stressful.  A quarter-life crisis is real, you guys. That is just a snippet of what goes through my mind. It's gotten much better, though. I've started figuring some stuff out. The rest will come later.

-C

for more info/stories/advice about anxiety & depression:

How to talk to someone who has depression

Living with anxiety (article)

Surviving Anxiety  (article)