Sweetbitter

Okay so every once in a while I think about what my life will be like in 10 years.

Lately, I've been thinking about this a lot.

But every time I daydream about it, or dread it, or fantasise about it, it's never the same. And I can't decide whether that's good or not.

It could be a good thing because it meant all my options are open, life is full of different possibilities and I'll never know what's in store for me until it actually happens.

But it could also be a bad thing because it meant none of my desires and hopes will play out and happen - I'll stay where I am right now and not grow any further as a person.

There's a clear film in my head, involving a big house, a kid, bagels and bananas for breakfast, scented candles and fresh flowers on Sunday mornings, bedsheets with crayon marks and research papers with coffee rings on them, read after the night light has been plugged into the wall of a messy but heartwarming room down the hall, cuddles on the couch with a glass of wine, making stupid remarks about an even stupider movie.

Sweet?

But there's another very clear film in my head, involving planes and hotel rooms and fruit and rigorous exercise regimes. Presentations, computers, constantly missing someone but being fulfilled by who I am as a person and by my impact on the world. Again, the research papers with coffee rings on them, but it's a different kind of coffee rings, a serious kind representing the discipline and strength that went into re-reading things long into the night.

Passionate talks and whispers and lipstick stains on hotel sheets bought in upscale department stores, no strollers in sight and whenever possible, long nights of talks and drinking red wine.

Sweet?

The only reality I'm actually afraid of is that I'll become stuck in between these two.

Bitter?