Choices

I had dinner last night with my friend Alison, tasty Chinese food at our favorite place, a little hole in the wall on Mass Ave in North Cambridge. She and I crossed paths originally when I worked at the large 'n fancy consulting firm. She's still there and she told me that I'm in a LOT of the firm's holiday party pictures, while she is in none of them, despite the fact that I for all intents and purposes no longer work there (although I do occasional editorial work for them) while she is there full time.

I've decided I am the Paris Hilton of the consulting industry. Only I am smart and not a trashy, trashy whore.

Anyhoo. Alison has wanted to work in television production for a while now. She just turned 29 and since I've known her, she first tried to learn the process from someone within the consulting firm. When that didn't work out, she decided to work for free on the side helping produce a program for the local public access cable company. She's also been reaching out to people in the industry.

Her plan is to make a career move by 30 and she's willing to start at the bottom. I really admire her gumption and I told her so. She said thank you and said that I was her hippie friend. She said this with love, of course, as did my cousin Katie, who called me bohemian.

You can probably guess where I'm going with this -- where am I going with my life? I'm 33, I don't necessarily have a life plan. I'm still working out the Ritalin thing and I feel like I could put something together for myself in terms of, well, why not try to work towards buying a house in Center Sandwich on my own? I could work from home, and garden, and have wiener dogs.

At the same time, I want to stop regretting the choices I've made so far. Because when I look back on it, I've experienced a lot of real living, doing interesting, quirky things. I really enjoyed sharing my experiences working at the Indian firm with Alison and how much I especially loved working with the women there because they are so much newer to the opportunities of an independent life where they're on equal footing with men than the women in this country are. And they have been, to a one, delightful, warm, intelligent, and funny people.

I don't really have a conclusion for this save for that a new year is coming and I want to embrace it and live in it with as much joy and belief in possibility as I can muster.