Control?

Today I actually got something I wanted. Someone thought I was good enough to do the job they needed. It actually happens so rarely, I'm a bit skeptical about the outcome. These things don't usually happen to me. But I also know that I procured a recommendation from someone that pretty much everyone respects, and that helped a lot. It probably got me the job. There are a lot of things I wouldn't have been able to do without his blessing. So I'm sitting across from this woman who shares my ethnic background, which is actually pretty rare. But I'm such a phony because I don't know anything about the culture, the country, or the language. And she has the stereotypical accent that you always see in bad Hollywood films. And she tells me her background (I don't know why) and it is very similar to mine.

And I start looking at her and wondering if this is me in fifteen years. I wonder if I'll have a gap in my teeth like she does. I wonder if I'll be apologizing for the messy office I have. It's strange. Because part of me does want that. And part of me wants something else. And still other parts of me want a myriad of things that are mutually exclusive of one another. So I suppose the answer is that you don't control life. It controls you. You have a lot of paths from which to choose, and different things lie in each. And some things don't go together. Kids, careers, love, money, travel, respect. They don't all go together, but I still want them all. And so far I'm batting zero. Because I can't really decide. I don't know what is more important to me. And I don't know which things I can actually obtain. Because I've tried for all (well, maybe not ALL) and come up empty-handed. And maybe it doesn't even matter. Because it's not up to me.