Where Next?

For as long as I can remember, I had a reasonably clear idea of where my life was heading. I wanted a career, a marriage, children, a beautiful home and all those other things we’re encouraged to believe constitute a successful life. 

And, for the most part, I achieved them.  I wasn’t following some meticulously constructed plan. I didn’t know precisely what the future would look like, but I understood the direction I was travelling. I had a career I was proud of, a beautiful home, two wonderful daughters and a marriage that I believed would last for the rest of my life. I knew where I was going.

Until suddenly, I didn’t.

My marriage unexpectedly ended. Beyond the obvious emotional upheaval, the practical difficulties and the rather unpleasant experience of watching the life I’d built begin to unravel, I discovered that I could no longer answer a question I'd once taken for granted. And that genuinely frightened me.

Where would I be in five years?

I didn’t know whether I’d be able to keep my home. Whether my career would be affected, what my relationship with my children would look like, or how they would cope with a situation they hadn’t asked for and couldn’t possibly understand. I didn’t even know whether anyone would ever love me again.

I knew the bruises would heal. They were bruises, after all, not scars. What frightened me wasn’t the pain of what had happened, but the uncertainty of what came next. For the first time in my adult life, I had no idea where I was going. It was the realisation that the future I’d spent so many years working towards had disappeared, and I had absolutely no idea what might replace it.

Of course, time has a peculiar way of making things that once seemed impossible become perfectly ordinary.  Not immediately, and certainly not without moments when I questioned whether things would ever feel normal again. But gradually, the uncertainties that had once seemed so overwhelming began to resolve themselves. The future hadn't become any more predictable, but perhaps I'd become a little more comfortable with not knowing exactly what it held.

I did keep my house. My career continued and advanced. My daughters remained my daughters, and whilst the arrangements of our lives changed, the love between us didn’t. Our relationship simply developed into something different.

Gradually, the uncertainty became less frightening. But something else had changed.

For the first time in many years, I found myself with a degree of freedom I hadn’t previously enjoyed. Not the sort of freedom that involves selling everything, buying a campervan and announcing to the world that I’ve finally discovered myself. I’m far too attached to central heating and a decent broadband connection for that.

But the freedom to make decisions for myself, without constantly considering someone else’s expectations.  Of course, freedom is a relative concept. I still have a career to maintain, financial responsibilities to meet and, most importantly, two daughters whose lives remain very much intertwined with mine. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The freedom I’ve discovered isn’t the freedom to walk away from everything. It’s the freedom to make more of my own decisions within the life I still have. And, as it turns out, I have an extraordinary capacity for finding things to occupy myself.  DIY projects, decorating, experimenting with my smart home and occasionally spending an entire Sunday improving something that, if I’m being entirely truthful, probably didn’t need improving in the first place.

Some people find themselves through meditation. Apparently, I find myself with a screwdriver in my hand.  But there’s genuine enjoyment in these things. A satisfaction in doing something simply because I want to, rather than because I think I should. The irony of endlessly fixing things, whilst having been unable to fix my marriage, isn't lost on me either.

I’ve rediscovered my love of writing, too. Not because I have some grand ambition to become a celebrated author, but because I enjoy exploring the peculiarities of life. And occasionally, when something I’ve written resonates with somebody else, there’s a quiet satisfaction in knowing that perhaps my observations aren’t entirely peculiar to me.

But I wouldn’t suggest that any of these things have given my life some newfound purpose. They occupy my time. They make me happy. And perhaps that’s enough.  Or is it?

Yet somewhere amongst this newfound independence, I keep returning to the question of what I’m actually working towards. For much of my life, the milestones were obvious. Find someone, build a career, have children, create a home. Each achievement seemed to point towards the next.

But what happens when you’ve achieved those things, and the future you imagined continuing takes an entirely different direction? What does the second chapter actually mean for me – and is it actually for me?

I could tell you some of the things I want. Another relationship, perhaps. Someone to share experiences with, to laugh with, to create memories alongside. More adventures, new places and evenings that become stories worth telling.

But I wonder whether I’m simply replacing the old milestones with new ones. After all, we’re remarkably good at convincing ourselves that happiness is waiting somewhere just beyond our next achievement. A better job. A bigger house. A newer car. The latest phone. We pursue them, enjoy them briefly, and then discover something else we apparently can’t live without.  The destination keeps moving.

And perhaps there’s a danger that we spend so much time running towards whatever comes next that we forget to appreciate where we already are.  I wonder whether I did some of that in my first chapter. Whether I occasionally became so focused on building the future I thought I wanted, or perhaps what was expected of me, that I overlooked parts of what I already had. And maybe that was, in some small part, the reason that chapter ended. I simply don’t know.

But perhaps there’s another way of looking at the future. When I’m 75 and I look back on my life, what will I remember?

The evenings I spent watching television? The things I bought? The countless little achievements that seemed terribly important at the time? Perhaps not.

Or the people I met, the places I visited, the unexpected conversations and those wonderful moments that somehow become stories we find ourselves telling years later?

I want to fill my life with things I’ll remember. Not necessarily extravagant adventures or extraordinary experiences. Sometimes the simplest evenings become the most memorable. And yet, there’s a contradiction in that ambition.  Because if I’m constantly searching for the next memorable experience, am I really doing anything different from the person chasing the next promotion, the bigger house or the latest phone?

Am I simply giving the hedonic treadmill a more respectable destination?  Perhaps there is no grand purpose waiting to be discovered. Perhaps the second chapter doesn’t need the same milestones and labels that the first did.  Perhaps there’s something to be said for just enjoying what I have, embracing opportunities as they appear and accepting that I don’t need to know exactly where I’ll be in five years.

But that doesn’t entirely satisfy me either. Because I still find myself wondering what I want from this next chapter. What I want to achieve, what I want to experience, and who I want to share it with.

And somewhere, lurking in the shadows of everything I think I want, is a rather more uncomfortable question.  What do I actually need?

And will I recognise it when I find it?