my five year plan

on where I see myself in the future

This piece has been published in The Ave Issue 1.

“When I try to picture for myself what a happy life might look like, the picture hasn't changed very much since I was a child - a house with flowers and trees around it, and a river nearby, and a room full of books, and someone there to love me, that's all. Just to make a home there, and to care for my parents when they grow older. Never to move, never to board a plane again, just to live quietly and then be buried in the earth.”

― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

My supervisor asks where I see myself in the future. Like, two years? He tilts his head. Five?

I’m so young, is what I want to say, body still shaped like a child’s. Hair still untamable in the mirror. I’m still trying out products, still searching for the perfect blend of gels and oils and conditioners. I’m still burning my dinner, I want to say. I still wear sneakers, and I hate blazers. I still develop crushes, all hot and dreamlike, cheeks pink and smile stupid, poems in my notes app.

My supervisor asks where I see myself in five years. My brother asks the same. My aunts, my friends, my boyfriends. I'm so young, I want to say, still listening to the 1975, still curled by the heater in the winter, lying on the floor by the window. What about your dreams? What do you dream about, what do you dream for? I dream about trees and gardens. A typewriter by the window. A cottage, maybe? Wildlife at the center. Museums close-by. Trains.

I dream about easy mornings and soft nights. I dream about a quiet mind, a comfortable inside. Clothes that feel good. A litter box that doesn’t dirty the room around it. My boyfriend dreamt of being a millionaire, and I dreamt of a bed shared with him. Two nightstands.

My five year plan is to grow in love. The boys would always ask what kind of wedding I dreamed of. I wanted a marriage, not a wedding. You’re lying, they’d say. You’re just being nice. My five year plan is to share my life with someone soft. Flowers on Valentine’s Day. Smiles in the morning. Two toothbrushes. Instagram photos, kissing.

My five year plan is to live closer to my best friend - to sit beside each other while we do separate things. To take walks with her. To sit on her bed as she tries clothes on. To take photos of her sitting on her bean bag, playing Zelda. My five year plan is to laugh with her. My five year plan to see my sister with the big family she’d always wanted. My five year plan is to see my mother happier. My five year plan is to see my mother go to therapy. My five year plan is to no longer be afraid of touching. My five year plan is nights at the bars with my friends, whiskey and wings. My five year plan is writing. Just writing. Not working and writing, not writing for work. Just writing.

My five year plan is to sit idly, patiently, softly.

What do you want for your birthday? Company. Fluffy sheets. I’m not trying to be humble, these are just my dreams. I want a house full of all of you, and I want dancing. Only music I like, this time. For my birthday, I want you, and I want to see you happy. And I want hugs, lots of them. And if you’d like to get me a gift, go to the thrift store, and pick out something that reminds you of me.

Where do you see yourself in five years? I see myself surviving. Track record. I see myself screaming, into pillows. I see myself crying, out of happiness, and sometimes sadness, too. I see myself hosting a dinner and watching everyone mingle. I see myself in a warm home with stairs and photos of my life that line the wall upwards. Where do you want to travel, what’s on your bucket list? Anywhere and nowhere, everything and nothing, is my answer. My brother dreamt of Japan his whole life, and took me along, and I realized my dream was to see the wonder in his eyes. My dream is to get on a plane with someone beside me, always. My dream is to hold hands. My dream is to see the people I love and run towards them in the airport. My dream is to hold them. My dream is to hold.

My dream is to love.

I’m still so young, I want to say, as my classmates get married and get pregnant and get promoted. Your aunt found you a husband, my mother says, every three phone-calls. I’m thinking of falling in love, certainly, but I’m not thinking of forcing someone to love me. I don’t want a husband, I want a partner, mom. Stop sending me grooms, mom. Stop trying to force it, mom! I don’t want an arranged marriage to pull me out of the shame. I want love. I want love. I want love.

Let me find it, mom.

Do you see yourself in a senior position? I see myself in skirts with my feet in the grass. I see myself biking across neighborhoods. I see myself in the cottage I slept in on my exchange program, when I was 14, lost in the woods of Czech Republic. I see myself in moments like that, which seem to go on forever, days feeling like years, those periods you know you’re living.

What do you recommend to someone just turning twenty? A girl once asked me, What should I look forward to? What should I do? Party? Well, I said, I don’t like parties, only occasionally, and my twenties have felt like someone turned off the lights and I’ve been desperately trying to find the door handle. My twenties have felt like shedding - painfully, hauntingly. My twenties have felt like drowning, really.

My twenties have been a series of What are your plans next’s and Where do you see yourself in five years’s and the only answer I’ve ever been able to come up with have been blank stares. There are no rules, the other girls assure me. No, but listen to me, my twenties have been a series of voice notes to my best friend, whining and crying and trying to make sense of everything that keeps happening. My twenties have been writing, then being upset I can’t write, then writing again. My twenties have been reading other writers and wishing I was them. My twenties have been wishing I was other people then looking in the mirror and realizing I was me. Me, me, me. And maybe she’s lovely. Maybe she’s something.

Listen. My twenties have been a series of fucking burnt dinners, but when I was twelve my brother came to visit, and to celebrate my mom bought the cheapest barbecue Safeway had to offer, and we sat on our balcony and burnt a series of chicken wings, and as we took our first bites, “This sucks,” my brother said, “but we made it ourselves, and that’s what matters.”

So, I guess, that’s what I think you should do in your twenties.

Burn my dinner?

Yes, I said.

And eat it anyway.

You made it, and that’s what matters.

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Octavia Butler

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