What?

What? This seems to be the question constantly pounding on my brain these days. If the the word 'what' and the punctuation 'question mark' where a tangible thing, it'd be a little man with a mallet swinging away at the gray matter that composes my brain.

I'm struggling with life at the moment. It isn't that I expect to ever have a time where making choices and feeling a bit lost, but as I've mentioned in a previous post, I feel stalled. And I've realized it's not so much that things just aren't happening for me, so much as I don't know what I want.

What do I want? The 'American Dream' image flashes through my head: a white picket fence, a dog, husband, house, children, block parties, a family Sudan, and everything that particular package entails.  Or the adventurous life style: A rucksack and battered clothing, little money, but worldliness and thrilling adventures to share when coming home to family. Or the solitary lifestyle: a dead end job, one bedroom apart meant, a cat, and late night television. In the story telling world there are only seven basic story plots. Hundreds of years and hundreds of thousands of good writers have managed to create fabulous adventures, but at the core nearly story is identical. A difference in names, made-up places, conflicts, and loves only manages to re-create an already written story. There is a certain construction to writing a story, otherwise it doesn't count as a story. It doesn't mean a love story like Pride and Prejudice is any less romantic than Twilight because it's older or that (in some people peoples' opinion) is better. They can both be equally romantic.

My point, is I think a person's life is nothing more than a re-written story. I think there are only so many lives able to be lived, and my problem is choosing which one is for me. What do I pick? The classic grow-up, go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, get a dog or the free-spirit, travel the world, and see a lot of culture version of life?

I guess my fear with ultimately choosing one version of life over another is regret I know I would feel having not chosen a different one. My problem though, is I want pieces of both. I know there are friends and family who would tell me I can have both and make the best of it, but I once heard this piece wisdom and it resounds throughout my head every time I start thinking about my future; it goes like this: "You can have anything you want. You just can't have everything you want." And my problem is I believe that. It is not possible, in life, to get absolutely everything your heart desires.

I know I want a family. But I also want to see the world. I want to be in love. But I also want to be free. But in all cases, one doesn't usually come with the other. Something has to be sacrificed. I just don't know what my heart's willing to give up. What is the right choice?

And maybe there is an unwritten story. Maybe there is one more plot that hasn't been discovered that would work out well for me. I find it funny, most people go through life hoping to always be right. I'm always hoping to be wrong.