Nothing makes you feel like more of a spoilt brat than having a perfectly good life, yet still being ridiculously restless.
That’s where I find myself. I said a few weeks ago that I think being grateful is a huge part of feeling more content but sometimes it doesn’t cover up a nagging in my head that this can’t be all there is to life.
I’m not sure where the line is between being grateful and just settling for what you have.
As the writer Regina Brett says, “if we all threw our problems into a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back”.
Life isn’t so bad, but what if I doesn’t feel as good as you thought it could? I’ve spoken to quite a few people I know of similar ages and in similar situations (ie settled with a man, planning futures and in a full-time job), and they all feel the same sometimes.
My main feeling is that I’ve had my wings clipped. I love my boyfriend, but sometimes things such as his niece saying to me last week, “I hope you are a mum soon”, cause me to hyperventilate. I’m not sure I am cut out to be a mother, or even if I want to be.
But that’s a future issue, not one I have to deal with now.
I feel as though things have started to come together in my life: stable job and income, a man I can have a future with, a flat I plan on living in for a long time, I am picking up Thai and I always thought I could live in Bangkok forever. I’ve wanted all this for so long. I’ve wanted to feel as though I have some kind of future plan rather than wandering aimlessly.
But rather than feeling secure, it feels like my options are closing off and that I am trapping myself into the kind of life I always thought looked really boring. A life of nappies and mortgages and two weeks of holiday a year doesn’t appeal at all. I know this is a spoilt girl problem. The grass is always greener on the other side, I guess.
The relationship is great, but all the compromise that goes with it can be suffocating. I think I would feel the same in any relationship. It makes me wonder if I would be better off as a wandering nomad for my whole life. There’s definitely an irrational part of me that just wants to pack a backpack and go and move to Peru. I’m not going to do that because I think I’ll regret it in about six seconds.
Chatting to other women like me shows me this is totally normal. I’m not sure if that’s comforting or worrying. Are we all square pegs trying to jam ourselves into round holes? Or maybe I am letting Hollywood affect my ideals. Maybe nobody is ever deliriously happy about every aspect of their life and they just do their best. Relationships need work; work is, well, work, and the future is always uncertain. Maybe feeling hungry and slightly dissatisfied is just part of it.
I can’t tell what is a warning sign and what’s just a part of life.
