I wrote this in December 2020 (it’s currently April 2023). Since then, I’ve gotten a divorce, bought a new house, dated endless people, gotten a boyfriend, and switched jobs. I never would have predicted any of it which is why this article still stands: 5-year goals are pointless.
…
Yeah. I said it. I’ve got no shame in my game: 5-year goals are pointless.
Caveat: educational goals don’t count. No one has ever earned a Ph.D. in 3 months. So if that’s where you’re at, stop dicking around on Medium and get back to studying.
Last week, I wrote an article about going No Contact. As one would assume, Murphy’s Law kicked in and Jon (the guy in question) sent me a few messages. He commented on life five years from now. I didn’t text a response to that statement (we weren’t going into a big conversation or anything like that, breaking the No Contact and all) but I did give an audible combination of a snort and a laugh.
Perhaps you, like Jon, have a job that kept you out of the house all year. And maybe you also live in an area where private schools were allowed to stay open for all of 2020, so the stress of at-home teaching wasn’t an issue. That same area was never out of flour, toilet paper, or butter. Plus, maybe you also lived in a Trump-centric town where masks were merely an optional accessory. If that was your world in 2020, then speculating on life five years from now is rational.
Then there’s the rest of us.
2020 was our version of the Upside Down. Things looked the same, but they weren’t. To return something at Sephora last week, I stood in line wearing a mask six feet apart outside for an hour like in the 1980s USSR waiting for a loaf of bread. While the pilates and Versaclimber studios where Jon lives are open, the gyms near me have permanently closed shop. When I waited for my most recent coronavirus test with a friend who was also exposed, she and I commented that it felt like we waited in a third-world country for three hours. The ghetto urgent care we went to is one minute from my house…it felt like Tijuana.
When all this went down in March 2020, I naively thought we would be back to normal lives by summer. I even refused to buy a mask (the beauty of dating Jon, a doctor, meant he handed me disposable masks when I saw him). Out of necessity, I bought a new desk for work but went for something aesthetically-pleasing, figuring I could suck it up with a functionally-useless desk for a month or two that I would later use as a makeup vanity. I’m sitting at that desk right now, which I will continue to do until at least June 2021, and I’m ready to take a sledgehammer to it.
To speculate on life five years from now is like guessing what will happen five million years from now. Should I plan on an alien invasion? Who knows! Should I plan on getting a brain tumor? Who knows! Should I plan on having triplets? Who knows! (Okay that one I do know, because I’ll take a wire hanger to my uterus if I ever get pregnant again, unless wire hangers become obsolete after the alien invasion.)
I assume Death and Taxes will forever be a thing, so I am still planning for those. I won’t stop contributing to my retirement only because I don’t care if the aliens are chewing on my brain tumor, I sure as hell am not going to keep working when I’m old.
For everything else…fuck it. I’m not waiting five effing long years for anything. I’m getting a vaccine and then I’m getting what I want now.
Maybe if we, as a collective society, all suffered the same way I wouldn’t feel a desperate need to bust out of these walls like the Kool-Aid man and live life. But living next door to a city that pretended the virus is a hoax while we treated our homes like post-apocalyptic bomb shelters is making me irrationally angry and jealous.
I don’t want to cautiously do life anymore. I’m going to wear evening gowns to go grocery shopping and I’m going to drive two hours to get gelato that I could just as easily buy here. I’ve already agreed to do a 5k with a friend on the east coast despite that I vowed never to do one ever again due to a fucked up knee. No longer am I going to apologize for the things I love doing; yeah bitches, I love spending hours at the library.
For the first 42 years of my life, I operated under a life of fear and paranoia. Ordering off a restaurant menu caused so much stress, I had to review the menu online beforehand. Being miserable for almost two decades in my marriage left me in a state of analysis paralysis, unable to make a decision one way or the other. While I’m still paranoid about things like the sun (if I’m going to go balls-in with life, I’m going to have youthful skin dammit), my risk tolerance has skyrocketed.
Everything came to a head a few months ago when I told my husband I was done with our marriage and I had surgery shortly after (performed by Jon, because why not have your ex-boyfriend operate on you so that you can look ultra hot when you start dating other people?). Looking back, it was like being whacked by bricks from all directions. Everything was one massive rollercoaster of drama. My husband had daily meltdowns on our bedroom floor. I was expected to have post-operative appointments, while looking like garbage, with a guy I loved deeply but couldn’t have. My stomach was gutted like a fish and I couldn’t exercise to alleviate any of the stress; I curled up in bed and binge-watched Grace & Frankie.
But the dust settled. Looking around at the destruction, I didn’t feel worse. I felt better. I no longer felt confusion, indecisiveness, and turmoil. For the first time in a long time, I felt confident and strong. Not physically strong, because I still have all the upper body strength of a kitten. But emotionally strong and ready to charge ahead like one-eyed Thor fighting to the sounds of Led Zeppelin.
So no. I’m not speculating on five fucking years. If I want something, I’m fucking taking it. If there’s work to make it happen, then I’m doing it. I’ll dot the i’s and cross the t’s. We’ve learned we can’t trust Fate to do anything for us. The last time we did, we lost a year of our lives.
I’m still a planner at heart. While I wait for the world to get its inoculation on, I’m taking the next steps of random things I want to make happen. I switched to a new therapist who is downright terrifying and amazing; she’s helping me figure out the steps I should take to bail out of the marriage completely. I’m taking online singing lessons with the only goal to stop making glass break when I sing Happy Birthday (not an easy thing to do when you’re trying to hide this from judgy family members and you can’t sing on the down low). If I could, I’d pull Jon by the hair to Greece like a caveman dragging his wife but aside that he’s significantly more muscular than I am, his post-divorce path is different than mine and it’s not on me to mess with that.
None of you should be playing the “where do you see yourself in five years” game either. What do you want today? It may take five years to complete but start that goal now.
Which I will do as well. Right after I take a nap.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often | Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | ..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything |
—–
Photo credit: Ben White on Unsplash