Can I Get A Map Please?

Most non-shocking statement of 2012: I'm a control freak. I am always someone with a plan - or a planned plan at least - and it seems that currently, well,  I have no plan. I have everything I want - awesome job, amazing besties, fab BF, happy family that's juuust close enough to see whenever I want, but no idea how to squeeze everything in or how life will transition going forward. So.This is very different for me. Usually I am miserable or overly concerned about the progress in one or two aspects of my life, and have a wonderful plan as to how to become happy or fix what's causing angst. I mean, clearly, I'm a bomb little planner because I got everything I currently want (except a puppy - I still really want a fucking puppy), but now I'm trying to balance it all and not spend my life wishing for everything to be more organized, better planned, and basically wrapped up in a pretty little bow.

Not for nothing, but no one tells you about this part of life. No one warns you. No one tells you there is a short period where you just want to / get to have selfish fun with your friends. And that then you reach a time, approximately around age 27ish, where you start to worry that you're going to grow old alone (if you don't count the 14 cats you'll likely share residence with), so you walk a thin line between loving singledome and wishing to find your someone ASAP. And certainly no one tells you that once you found a someone, potentially your real someone, that you'll continue attempting a balancing act. You're not really choosing one person or thing over another, but there's simply not enough time to always fit friends, family, a boyfriend, and that increasingly demanding, yet rewarding career.

For the record, I am very aware that I'm White Whining all over the place, because these are not REAL problems. Being really happy is not a problem. I am beyond beyond aware that I don't have much to complain about (knock on wood).  I'm just...confused? What does one do without a plan and why doesn't anyone older and wiser have a plan I can copy? A road map of sorts? Just some suggestions perhaps? (I'm well aware few older and wisers read this blog, so I suppose that's a bit of a rhetorical question.)

Maybe no one warned me because not everyone gets this. Not everyone gets to have the awesome friend time in their 20s, mixed with career missteps, and an overall sense of non-direction, teaching you valuable life lessons and ultimately landing you in a position where you are surrounded by all the right people and things. Where you feel like you are finally doing EXACTLY what you should be doing when you should be doing it, but now you're not really sure what you should be doing next.

Since no one seems to have advice for this life moment, I guess I'll refer to my girl Carrie, who always seems to have wise input (except with boys, who picks Big over Aidan? Still not pleased about that) . . .

“Sometimes we need to stop analyzing the past, stop planning the future, stop figuring out precisely how we feel, stop deciding exactly what we want, and just see what happens.”