Where Do I Want to Go?

5 years from now,

I hope that I am finally back out in the world. I don’t think a pandemic will take half a decade, but I didn’t think it would take a year. I worry that I won’t be back to the positive person I used to be. People tell me that right now, I am positive and happy, but how many of them have no frame of reference for who I used to be?

5 years from now, I want to be who I used to be again.

I want to be in grad school, working on a music/performance doctorate, or a doctorate in neuroscience. I want to be out of my house now, living in a small and cozy apartment with a significant other. I want to go out on date nights weekly, and read books by the dozen. I want to be a polyglot who helps to teach English to refugees and those learning English as a second language as a way to get through school and a way to find some meaning. I want to have a recording studio or my own home set up, and I hope to make music or videos most nights.

5 years from now, I want to be bursting with love for me, my partner, and the world.

Mostly, I want to be happy. I want to have a large and sustainable wardrobe that is full of clothes I’ve either made or restored. I want to be very much in love with myself and my partner, and if we are allowed, it would be nice to have a cat. I want to have traveled overseas, mainly to Asia and Europe. Maybe to do some charity work, maybe just to get better at languages. I want to go to dance classes in my free time and possibly choreograph performances.

5 years from now, I want to be doing the thing that makes me feel like I’m really alive.

I hope that 5 year from now, I will have one poetry anthology published and that I still perform and write as a hobby. I hope I still have time to write. I hope I still like writing. Will grad school have worn me out? Will I still be able to think for myself if I’m writing strictly for others?

5 years from now, I worry that I will be so different from what I am today. Do I even like today? Do I like who I am at this moment, or am I so scared of who I could be if I change that I will settle for what I am right now?

I hope I have a big window with a bench to read. With navy blue pillows and a sprawling tree, tapping on the glass. I hope to have an exposed brick wall, with a piano in the corner. I want to have these little luxuries that no one discusses when talking about the future. We talk about the graduations, the marriages, the anniversaries. We don’t talk about the color of the floorboards or a spiral staircase or floor to ceiling windows. We talk about the big picture, but I have fallen for what I can do within the details.

In 5 years, I hope I’m out of quarantine. I hope I’m out of quarantine.