city life

 

i'm pretty future minded. i'm always thinking about what i want to do, where i want to live. i make a lot of lists. i plan trips and parties.

and every now and then i stop and look at my life, and i think to myself - i don't totally remember what i planned on doing at this point, but i'm pretty sure this isn't it. did i plan on living in philadelphia and working a 9-5 job? did i plan on dating a boy who lives two hours away? did i think i would look and dress this way? did i think i would think this way? did i imagine myself doing improv two to four nights a week? where did i see myself?

i don't even remember.

and i'm sure that two years from now, i won't even remember the plans i made for future me in the present. which begs the question, what's the point in planning anything? things aren't going to go as planned and that's not even a bad thing. it's just a thing. 

when i was in kindergarten, i imagined that sixteen year old caitlin would only wear stick-out-belly shirts and date a guy with a ponytail and a red convertible. when i was fourteen, i thought i would live in new york and be on broadway, despite my lack of vocal ability. i've wanted to be a journalist, the president, a teacher, and a doctor. and i'm not those things. and i don't want those things anymore. isn't it strange that we can change so much and still be the same person?

the point of the matter is, if you asked me five years ago where i thought i would be post-graduation, i would have never in a thousand years told you that i would be cramming a weeks worth of groceries into a bike basket and teetering home in the rain. never planned on that one.

conspiracy theory

 

 i had a thought today as i was lugging a giant grocery bag, purse, and a carton of milk from trader joes, eight blocks back to my office. i was balancing the bag on my hip, holding the milk with two fingers, purse slung over my shoulder and eating a coconut chocolate chip clif bar (these are supposed to be good for you right? please tell me they are. i've convinced myself that because the packaging looks brown and earthy and there's a little climbing man on the side, they're some kind of superfood. don't burst my bubble.) - as this is going on, it occurs to me: 

do women carry purses as some societally imposed practice for carrying children? 

yesterday on the subway, my boyfriend volunteered to carry my overnight bag in addition to his own backpack. i completely appreciate his generousity, but he did grumble a bit about the cumbersome task and seemed baffled as to how to get through the turnstyle. but ladies? ladies be carrying mad bags all the time. pretty much always at least one.

this post could go a whole other direction at this point -  about the things women carry in their purses and why we feel we must carry them and how many of them are present because of some societally imposed standard of beauty. but that's a horse of a different color. and we will gallop on him some other time. 

back to the central thesis - is this prep work for lugging around chubby babies? i balanced that grocery bag on my hip like a pro and still managed to eat that clif bar in record time while booking it back to my office in seven minutes flat. i can feel my arm muscles bulking up. i can feel my hips finding their natural calling. and should i remain childless in the future, at least i will have a crazy ripped bod. and maybe i'll be able to carry TWO TRADER JOE bags! bold, forward thinking!

(this picture is of a picture at the eastern state penitentiary. the caption said they have no clue what that guy is doing. it's just lost in history. it's pretty amazing.)