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I think it’s time to start making some plans.

To work on some things that might not occur in the next week, but perhaps the next year.

To look ahead instead of looking at my feet, watching every tentative step.

I’m always scared to start saving for something or dreaming of something or working towards something big, because, well… who knows what might come up in the meantime?

What if the plan doesn’t work? What if it disrupts what I’m already doing? What if I’m not well enough? What if I have no resources, or I have to spend money on something more urgent and necessary? What if someone needs something from me that is more important than my own goals?

The feeling of wanting and dreaming and reaching… and then nothing.

I’ve done that. And those echoes don’t fade quickly.

But since when was that ever a real excuse?

I know I work hard at what I do and live a pretty sedate life beyond that.

I don’t take a lot of chances.

I don’t push a lot of boundaries.

I don’t ask a whole lot out of the world around me.

But I think it’s time I organized things and looked at what was possible, both in terms of setting down stronger roots, and growing my branches up towards the light of day.

I’m too young to be this resigned, and too old to think I can just “try again in a while.”

I need to try now, before I get too used to not trying at all.

When I was a little girl, I had so many dreams and daydreams about the future, and about how I intended to live my life. I had educational plans written in perfect penmanship in journals. I had house plans blocked out in crooked squares and pinned to corkboard behind my bedroom door. I had stacks of magazines full of images that seemed to add up to womanhood. I had crushes and boyfriends and notions about love that came from books and songs and movies. I had friendships that I figured would last a whole lifetime, and then some. I had lists of things I was going to do with my body and my heart and my mind.

I had everything planned out, but not really.

I just figured that anything I wanted was possible.

But somewhere along the way, I procrastinated and intimidated and vacillated and came up against obstacles I either couldn’t leap, or chose not to even tackle. And I know that I’ve disappointed myself and others with the things I didn’t do, and the things I didn’t try.

It doesn’t mean I didn’t work hard. It doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything with my time.

It just means I sold out what could have been. What should have been.

Now the clock ticking onward finally seems to have startled me out of a deep sleep, and I’ve come to realize that the stony chill of longing in the pit of my stomach is not something I have to live with forever.

I may not get it right.

I may not get it at all.

It might be too late for some things.

It’s just not too late for me.