Ten Years.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Ten years?

Ten years.

The question echoed back at me and physically stopped me from pacing, something I often do when I’m reading out loud.

I’m currently in the middle of Rachel Hollis’s, Girl, Stop Apologizing, and it was this particular query that literally stopped me in my tracks and caused me to think.

After the initial mental image of this popping into my head….

... I decided to sit myself down and really take the time to visualize the ideal version of myself and my life in ten years time.

What do you see yourself doing? Where do you see yourself living? What values are most important to you in ten years? Are you married? Do you have kids? Are you living your dream?

So I sat at my vanity, closed my eyes, and envisioned the most marvelous future.

And I got….

Nothing.

Nada.

I shook my head and thought, well maybe I’m just overthinking it.

Trying again, I took a deep breath and again got….

Nothing.

Imagining my future felt forced. Picturing myself in ten years felt impossible because I felt pressured to envision someone who was still figuring herself out, working to make sense of the present. It was a blank. It was like there was this mental roadblock that dead-ended and I couldn’t think of anything.

I could not see myself in ten years.

That notion scared me a little, and all I could think of was, well this can’t be good.

After expressing this concern over my inability to imagine my future to my journal, I then took my frustrations to my mom, who echoed my concerns with sadness in her eyes.

Well that’s too bad, she responded with a crestfallen expression.

I knew there was obviously something wrong with my ineptitude to imagine my own future, so I tried a new tactic, a different approach to this most perplexing question that I was having so much trouble answering.

So I go to Homer to take my mind off this panic-inducing question, and I find myself at a family friend’s beautiful timber frame home. I was sitting in the hot tub, sipping a mojito, relaxing after a day of halibut fishing that left my muscles sore, skin tanned (and maybe a little burned) from the sea sun, overlooking the beautiful Bay before me, and it was in that time, in that place, and in that moment in my life that I realized how to answer this question.

See, it was here in this distinct time in my day that I felt engulfed by these seemingly insignificant details that came together and made me realize that this was the kind of life I envisioned myself living in ten years, feeling this pure happiness.  

I think, in my head, when I first tried to envision my future self, I imagined living in this fantastical world, where nothing was off limits and I was living the most idealistic version of myself.

And the problem with imagining my future self is that I’m still learning who I am as a person. I’m still finding my values, my priorities, the things and people that make me the most happy, what sets my soul on fire, and I’m continuously growing into the woman I’m meant to be.

Perhaps that’s where this disconnect occurred. I don’t NOT see myself in ten years. I’m just living each day as best I can, and continuously discovering who I am, that I haven’t thought about what my future looks like because I’m enjoying my life as it happens now.

And as I do so, I’ll discover things about myself and the future life I do want.

Like having a clawfoot tub.

Editing my own magazine.  

Owning a cat. (or two)

Living in a home with a view of the Bay.  

Sitting court side at a Los Angeles Lakers game.

And of course, to be happy.