Growing up is a frightening process

I've been going through a bit of a midlife crisis.
But don't worry, this is actually more of a yearly crisis for me.
Generally it doesn't strike until a month before my birthday.
Since this is May, it's a bit premature
But, you know,  I'm dealing with it.

Usually this is brought on by my birthday. The realization that I am getting older and so clearly nowhere near where I thought I would be at this age. The slowly strangling realization that worse, I don't know what I want or where I want to be. Not knowing where I want to be is almost as bad as not knowing how to get there. When I was in my early twenties, my careless lifestyle was romantic, alluring even. There was so much time.  And there were so many of us, lost and not caring to be found, in no rush for babies or careers or structure.

However, living off the grid is only romantic when you are young and beautiful.

And then at around twenty five, I looked around and realized the crowd had gotten a lot thinner.
I had always hung around an older group of friends and they were settling down. The friends from high school were all go getters and were way a head of the curve and no longer emotionally available to someone without a 401k. The people left were the very examples of what I didn't want to be. Single parents still trying to party and leaving their kids with babysitters more often then not. Older friends that refused to leave their parents house.  A lot of drunks, some that could keep a job and some that couldn't. I didn't want to be them. I don't want to be them.

Moving here was the best decision I've made in a long time. There are so many things about this place that make me happy. From the interesting characters that have welcomed me as family, to the simple fact that I see the ocean every day on my drive and from work. That dark expanse of water does amazing things for my soul. But it's not enough to prevent the midlife crisis panic. Because even though I spend every moment outside of work in a constant state of wonder that this is now my life, I still spend 8 hours a day dispatching. It's not that I hate my job, it's not bad and the coworkers are great. In fact, I feel guilty for even thinking about complaining about my job. I know how good I have it. But still the crisis looms.  Because I want... more...   Because I don't know what I want to do with my life but I know for sure that I don't want to spend it in an office. I don't want to spend it getting fat behind a desk, with two weeks of vacation every year. I love my life right now, but when I think of spending the next twenty years, living in one place and working the same type of office job, I break out in hives.  Yet every year I get closer to leaving my twenties and every year I have wild ideas and plans on what I'll do with my life, ideas and plans that gather dust as reality laughs at them.

It's frustrating. Being so happy and so completely incapable of being content. There are moments that I think I've managed to catch both, to hold both happiness and contentment in my hands. Moments when I'm walking home in the fog at 3am, my mind whirling and spinning with the conversations and ideas explored over hot drinks and smokey tables. Moments when the only thing protecting me from a sunburn is the thin layer of salt and sand after hours in the ocean water. Moments of intimacy, moments of passion that lead to moments of almost peace. There is so much good, so much happymess in my life that these moments of panic, this restless panic that sulks in the corner, is baffling.

I can see contentment, it's in the corner of my eye, but when I turn to look at it fully, to welcome it, it slips from view, disappears.