The View from a Drawbridge

I have this nasty habit of imagining how my life is going to play out. Sometimes I project myself far into the future, and other times it’s just me anticipating how an evening is going to go.

For example, if I have a job interview, on the way there I imagine what my life will be like if I get the job. I’ll be able to buy this or that, I’ll improve my living situation, I’ll learn new skills and make new friends, I’ll be able to break out of the mental fog of working night shifts, and since I’ll have insurance I’ll finally be able to take care of various and sundry nagging health issues. And then I don’t get the job and poof! That whole future dies, and I find myself mourning a life that never existed.

Or I’ve got a date. I imagine how it will go. Laughing over dinner. Learning his stories, telling mine. Connecting. And then the date turns into a disaster. No connection. On the contrary, I find I feel more alone with this person than I do when I’m actually by myself. Another future, dead.

Every time I house hunt, I picture my new living situation. Every time I pack for a trip, I imagine what I will see or do. And when I take a risk and try to change my life, I always imagine it’s going to work out.

I suppose that’s the nature of taking chances and making plans. But I find that for the most part it’s quite disappointing. It’s as if I hop into this sublime future, and then am just as quickly yanked back into the present. It’s like a brief, cruel form of time travel.

I have dreams for my life, as everyone does. I have tried to achieve these dreams over and over again (see my blog entry Two Short Steps Away from my Life’s Dream). Nothing seems to get me there. It’s a bitter pill: seeing it, feeling it, tasting it, but never quite achieving it. It’s like a case of hiccups that won’t quite go away.

That whole school of thought that visualizing a certain outcome will make it come to pass gives me a serious case of acid reflux. If visualization worked, then my lifelong dream of living in the mountains and working from home and being thin would have happened decades ago. I visualize it every single day. I’ve even tried to take matters into my own hands and try to achieve it. In fact I’ve risked everything to try to achieve it, and…nada.

Apparently this is not my future. Maybe I need to let it go. Mourn for it and move on. Or perhaps I just need to learn to relax and let the future reveal itself to me instead of forcing myself forward toward a place that for some reason cannot exist despite my best efforts.

(Image credit: beliefnet.com)