MetaChat - Where do you see yourselves 10 years from now?

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18 March 2008

Where do you see yourselves 10 years from now? →[More:]Well, with the 25 year wedding anniversaries of some of our bunnies coming up, I was just curious as to what the Mechazens thought their futures held for them... Marriage, kids, grandkids? Do you think you're finally going to make that move to another city, state, country! How about your family relations... any idea if there are any reconciliations on the horizon if necessary? Jobs, ambitions, dreams??? Where do you think the next decade is going to take you? Will you still be here, in bunnyland, keeping the rest of us bunnies company? Or are you thinking of ditching us, and going completely offline?

Me? Well, I hope to have met most of you in the next two or three years when I come over there for a visit and criss-cross all over the US of A. (Hopefully I can convince Nicky to tag along and we can visit the whole lot of you... should be fun!) Marriagewise, hope to be married and settled, with someone special. Job: if not my dream of becoming a director, then at least something that pays the bills. Kids--two, a boy and a girl--a nice and happy family. And speaking of family--hopefully try and keep in touch with as many of my relatives as I can, and try and be there for my Parents as much as possible.

Okay--now you... and go!

post by: hadjiboy at: 08:37 | 48 comments

In ten years I will be 45. That is frightening, in a way.

I envision that I will still be living in the same town, same house, same husband. Which is a good thing. My kids will be 15 and 17. Hopefully they will be happy and healthy.

Will I still be online? I'm not sure. Hopefully not. I love being online. I love my Metachat friends, but hopefully not, if you know what I mean.

Health for myself and family, good friends, a fulfilling job and hobbies, and financial stability. Those are my hopes and goals. And last but not least, more fun. The next 10 years will be filled with fun.

10 years seems like a far way off, but it will be here in a flash. The years go by so quickly.

posted by LoriFLA 18 March | 09:08

This question makes me start to hyperventilate a bit - because there are a whole lot of things I would like to do within the next 10 years, and I am not sure how possible that really is. I would like to marry, have a child, and get my PhD in folklore. I would like to buy a house and learn to surf well.

It's hard to imagine all this happening so soon. Even if it does, my what a busy 10 years.

posted by Miko 18 March | 09:14

Married, 3 kids, on my way to becoming upper management, living somewhere where I can afford to buy a house (maybe NY, maybe FL, maybe somewhere else, I don't know). Or something completely different. I can go with the flow.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 18 March | 09:19

I'm 44. In 10 years, I will be 54, and having my 11 year anniversary with my husband. We will have no children, but three older cats. I hope we move to a bigger house in the same town, as I bought my house for one person and two cats.

I don't anticipate moving away. However, 10 years from now, I think my husband will be tired of his long commute and work an early retirement -- but he will do so by training for a second job: the Episcopal priesthood. He will likely find this more satisfying.

I anticipate I will finally reach the rank of full professor, having achieved associate professor 3 years ago. This will necessitate getting a research grant and doing some more serious research, which seems to have somehow fallen by the wayside since I got promotion/tenure. (I teach four classes a semester, so research time is somewhat rare to come by once you have a spouse).

I will hopefully have learned a few of the things I want to learn -- carpentry, car repair, and bobbin lace are a couple examples of things I want to learn to do before I die. And I will hopefully have seen a painted bunting.

posted by lleachie 18 March | 09:22

Actually, if I could be pretty much exactly where I am today in ten years, that would be great. I love my wife, like my job, love where we are living, so there's not much I would change. Hopefully, my son will have moved out of the house by then but I doubt that he wants to hang out with us old folks much longer.

posted by octothorpe 18 March | 09:23

In ten years I will be 52, and my baby daughter will be 10, my wife 39. I hope we're further, if not totally, out of debt. I hope we're in a slightly larger house, with a rockin' kitchen. But I wouldn't change much else. I'd like to find moments of inner peace; I'd like to let go of my anxiety and my tendency toward worry.

posted by tr33hggr 18 March | 09:25

In 10 years, I hope to have my own house (if things go the way I hope and pray they do, it'll be my awesome self-designed dream home that I'm working on with my dad and brother) and be working in a library somewhere, preserving and archiving old books for the future. I'll have my second master's by then, and will definitely have at least 1 cat, regardless of where I'm living.

Other than that, it's all up in the air right now.

posted by sperose 18 March | 09:38

ETA: I'll be 33 in 10 years (god that's a horrifying thought.)

posted by sperose 18 March | 09:38

It's hard to imagine all this happening so soon.

Are you kidding--you'll have done that and more within 5--really! (I just know it)

Lori, yeah, I know what you mean about the internet thing, but (as sappy as this may sound) you guys have sort of become a family for me, and it's going to be hard for me to extricate myself from that. And I hope I never do. Even if I don't spend as much time as I do now, I would like to check in with all of you on a regular basis and just chill every once-in-awhile:)

(you can't leave us--you know that--right;))

posted by hadjiboy 18 March | 09:45

Retired, but my retirement system (for public employees) is good enough that I will probably have a higher income retired than working.

I want to be doing disaster work, most likely for the Red Cross. I know people who get flown all over the world to whatever disaster is going on. It seems a hard and rewarding thing to do.

posted by danf 18 March | 09:46

sperose--I'll be 38!!! Can you fucking believe that? I can't, especially since I feel like a god damn nineteen year old...

posted by hadjiboy 18 March | 09:48

I'm planning to join up with them too this year, if I can get my head away from the monitor long enough. It should be a good distraction for me, and rewarding too.

posted by hadjiboy 18 March | 09:51

Sperose, I'm 32 and it's great. I like my 30's better than my 20's. As someone said to me, "Now that I'm in my 30's I've got so much game it's not even funny." It's true!

posted by halonine 18 March | 09:52

Sperose, 33 sounds pretty good looking at it from the perspective of being 43!

posted by octothorpe 18 March | 10:08

Wow, I’ve learned to not plan on the future, or even make much towards wishing…. But; if I can hope and wish: I’ll finally be out of the financial hole left from my hubby’s illness, maybe have somewhere to live other than the one room I now occupy (shhh, it’s not public – it’s a home that I’m designing in my spare time - maybe LEED certified/at least Energy Star compliant). I also hope to have arrived at some sense of order and to not have the fractured connection to the real world, which seems to be my norm of late. I don’t plan on ever being able to retire since we cashed in all of our IRA stuff to pay medical and living bills, so I’ll be hopefully working in the same place if the danged economy doesn’t nix my job. And, I’ll be way older than the rest of you youngsters, dangnabit!

posted by mightshould 18 March | 10:11

If you'd asked me this question five years ago, I could have given you a not-too-cobbled-together answer. The same would have been true five years before that, and five years before that, and possibly even five years before that.

But no one answer would have resembled the others much.

Right now, I don't really have an answer. Ten years from now? I have some dreams and some hopes, but few that I've resolved into solid goals just yet. I'm starting to think that (for me and for my life) that's fine.

posted by Elsa 18 March | 10:11

I'm with Octothorpe. Except that I love my husband, not my wife. I wouldn't mind being exactly where I am ten years from now. The only thing that I hope to change, once my son is out of the house, is to spend more time in South America. Right now our time in the Southern Hemisphere is restricted to the kid's school breaks, which is a serious bummer. Our goal is six months here, six months back in Brazil. I suppose that would be ideal. Other than that, don't change a thing.

posted by msali 18 March | 10:14

In ten years I'll be 54. Wowza. My son will be 26 and, please oh great gods, happily out of the house and stable and launched into his life. My daughter will be 35 - it's taken her a while to get onto her feet but by then, well, she should be most thoroughly there. It's possible I'll even have grandchildren. With a little luck I'll have my very own house and it will be the sort of in progress lifelong putter around art project that I'm currently contemplating. No doubt there will be dogs and cats; Django will be old and crotchety, but 12 isn't out of line for a springer. Maybe I'll have been able to do some traveling for the first time since my teens & early 20s. Maybe I'll have moved far far away - that's something I'm thinking and discussing more and more lately. Maybe I'll have won the lottery by then or maybe, sigh, life will still be the kind of financial struggle it's always been for me. Maybe I will have a partner in all of this - and maybe not; either way, I know I can deal.

Things can change a lot in ten years. I look back ten years ago and I wouldn't have believed where I'm living now, what I'm doing, any of it. Twenty years ago I wouldn't have believed where I was ten years ago and certainly not where I am and who I am now. Hell, twenty years ago, if I even thought about being over 40, which I didn't much, I would have assumed that I'd have my shit together: own a home, be married, etc. And none of that worked out in the classic American dream way, so, hell, who knows what my life will be like in 10 years?

posted by mygothlaundry 18 March | 10:18

Well, I'll hopefully have a PhD in 10 years (unless I decide against it) and I'll be doing whatever it is that people with a PhD in Semiotics do. I will have a small personal library with a truckload of books.

posted by Daniel Charms 18 March | 10:24

I'm hoping to be working part- instead of full-time by then.

posted by box 18 March | 10:36

In ten years I will be 42, which seems impossible. Frankly impossible. mr. gaspode will be 45 and our child will be 9. Hopefully we will all be happy and healthy. I will be running again (I wonder how long after the baby is born it will take to get my fitness back up to 10km levels?) and our little one will be playing junior soccer :)

Unless I manage to get one of the faculty positions I'm currently applying for, I don't see myself in academia, although I have no idea what I want to do. I will worry about that after the baby is born -- if I don't get a position then I am planning on taking up to a year off work, and re-evaluating.

If I do get a position, we will probably still be living in New York City, either in Queens or in the north Bronx, which is where we are currently looking for houses.

My one solid goal is for us to carry on traveling. There will of course be trips back to NZ to visit the extended fam, if we don't end up moving there which is always a possibility. mr. gaspode's family is a lot nicer and more supportive than mine though, which is a big reason we decided to stay here. We also want to get to various places in South America, Asia and of course there is the 2011 Cricket World cup in India that we will definitely be going to (hadjiboy, prepare for visitors!)

posted by gaspode 18 March | 10:40

I plan to have the bulk of my tour of the world finished by the end of 2009. After that, my plan is to finally get serious about my music. Pursuing a masters degree in math is also likely. Or, I may just become a permanent resident at an Amsterdam coffee shop. [For those who do not know, I am 49 and disabled by heart disease.]

posted by Ardiril 18 March | 10:40

I honestly never thought I'd live to see 32 [the year 2000] not for any particular reason, just because it seemed so far off. So even though it's eight years past that, every day just seems like gravy and I find it a bit weird to say I have no plans at all. I'd like to be healthy and happy and working with libraries.

posted by jessamyn 18 March | 10:41

hadjiboy, prepare for visitors!

LOOKING FORWARD TO IT!

posted by hadjiboy 18 March | 10:44

exactly what jessamyn said, right down to the year (we're the same age). Except I'll probably still be working in the biopharma industry.

posted by lonefrontranger 18 March | 11:00

Following up more, it's feels a little odd for me to not have any huge ambitions and goal to work toward. I've pushed myself pretty hard of the last fifteen years to create a career, finish my undergraduate and graduate degrees (both in night school), raise my son and build a professional career but I've done all that and don't really have any thing else that I need to prove. I'm an engineer and would like to spend the next twenty years without ever getting a single promotion since I have no interest in being a manager.

I would like to spend more time in politics, not running for anything but helping campaigns. I spent a lot of time two years ago campaigning for a challenger to our then congressperson and my guy won which was pretty satisfying. Travel too, I don't even have a passport and have only ever been to Toronto (during a blackout which was fun) so I'd like to go to Europe at some point.

posted by octothorpe 18 March | 11:17

I'd like to be healthy and happy and working with libraries.

I'll be 51 and that sounds good to me. If not libraries, working at something else I enjoy (bookstore or something with animals).

posted by deborah 18 March | 11:43

Am I the only one who'se thoughts immediately went to death? Who will I be likely to loose, will I even be around, the current animals will be gone?

No?

No wonder I don't make plans. Yeesh. I don't even consider myself a depressive person.

posted by rainbaby 18 March | 11:50

I will be 41, I think? I always forget how old I am.

I will have my therapist license and would like to have a booming private practice. I'd like kids. I'd like a (physical, offline) community in which I feel involved and productive and connected, filled with a few close friends, a lot of acquaintances, and some sort of group things (like professional associations and local politics and such).

I have no idea what Miko's community life actually is like, but I would like to have the kind of community life that I imagine Miko has, based on her posts here. I feel a distinct lack of community engagement right now, and I'd like to fix that once I'm out of school and have my professional feet under me.

I would like a garden, with good-smelling flowers and herbs. I would like a family that has dinner together multiple times a week. I'd like to still be doing yoga, and maybe get back into horseback riding. I'd love to develop some wicked-sexy crow's feet.

Really, the main image I'm getting in my head is me, with grayer hair and great laugh lines, sitting in a chair in a garden surrounded by lavender and rosemary and lots of buzzing bumblebees, reading a really good book in the sunshine and sea air, and thinking about what to buy at the farmers' market to make for dinner for everyone. So I guess that is where I see myself in 10 years.

posted by occhiblu 18 March | 11:54

Oh crap, I forgot to add the "grand life master" goal. My bridge game can only get better!

posted by gaspode 18 March | 12:07

I was born in 1960. I grew up with the threat of immenent nuclear annihilation; we were told that, due to the proximity of several military bases (including at least one Nike missile site and a large naval ammo dump) and the Lawrence Livermore nuclear labs, our area was certainly on the short list of places to bomb first.

I became an adult during the Reagan adiministration. The largest thermonuclear arsenal in the world was in the hands of a doddering, senile saber-rattler.

Given that, I already feel like I'm past my expiration date. Looking ahead ten years is not something I do.

posted by bmarkey 18 March | 12:10

And part two, yes, I'll be online, or whatever the ten years out online equivalent is, but I don't know where.

posted by rainbaby 18 March | 12:12

I have no idea what Miko's community life actually is like...

I do feel pretty lucky in this regard. I love my community life (I know it appears I spend my life online, but in fact, it's mainly goofing off at work). But it took me a long time and some - if not false starts, practice runs - to find a place that can use what I have to contribute and which has the kind of resources and institutions that fulfill me. After living a bunch of places that felt only OK in these regards, this place is a delight. It's the kid in a candy store feeling.

On the other hand, I've given my personal, intimate life short shrift as all these other areas were developed. So I'm working on catching that up these days.

rainbaby, I do think about people dying all the time, and the world changing, and how strange and sad that will be. But when I look into the future I don't emphasize it, since it's inevitable, and I can only hope that the person I am when those things happen will be ready to handle them in their time. Those are sad thoughts.

posted by Miko 18 March | 12:29

I think occhi and I will probably have to end up neighbors, because what she's described is basically what I had in mind. We'll be sitting in the garden, sharing recipes and herbs and kids.

posted by Specklet 18 March | 12:46

Ten years ago I was married, working as a divorce lawyer and drinking myself to oblivion every night.

I could never have predicted then where I would be now. My life is so very different from how it was then. So I'm hesitant to make any guesses about where I'll be in 2018.

posted by essexjan 18 March | 12:56

Perfectly honestly? I have no idea, because so many things are open to me right now. I could get married, or stay unmarried. I could still be living in NYC, or I could be somewhere else. I definitely don't want to still be at DumbCo, but I don't know where I'd end up.

If you asked me where I'd like to see myself, that's an answer to an entirely different question.

posted by TrishaLynn 18 March | 13:18

Yay, I have a neighbor from the future!

posted by occhiblu 18 March | 13:36

Ten years ago, I was in fourth grade. Holy crap.

In ten years, I'll be 30. Well, turning 31. I should actually be planning for these kinds of things.

I don't really have a handle on where my professional career is going to be. If I decide to go for broke and get that PhD, then it'd be nice to have it wrapping up or wrapped up by then (of course, there's the worry that I won't have anything to contribute to my field). If I go the law school route, then who knows. Same for any other profession, really. My problem is that I'm beginning to think that I'm only good at school and that I won't ever be able to find a real job (and my slew of rejections from internships this summer isn't helping).

In terms of relationships? Honestly, I think I'd like to be married by the time I'm 30. Of course, my (perhaps stupidly) ambitious career plans might interfere with my ability to be a good husband, and I don't want to lose out on stuff because I'm a workaholic. So it's complicated.

As to where I'm living, depends on the job and relationship situation. I like the midwest, but there's not a whole lot going for me in Kansas City. So who knows.

Or maybe I'll enter the seminary.

posted by dismas 18 March | 13:40

*waves cane at dismas, the young whipper-snapper*

posted by TrishaLynn 18 March | 13:59

I will have been doing my composing and songwriting full-time for at least five years, after spending a few formative years finding my footing here in L.A. I'll be singing in large halls with a small but devoted crew of exquisitely talented musicians. My voice will melt walls, ice, and hearts. I will be a cult performer with a few strange forays into commercial acceptance.

I'll have an expert command of the conduit between my artistry and my spirit-consciousness. I'll be a friend, healer, and mentor to those in my community. And I'll continue to live in constant gratitude for my gifts and my experiences.

The man in my life, if there is to be one, will meet me toe-to-toe in spiritual power, and we will dance in it.

Everything else is a delicious mystery.

posted by mykescipark 18 March | 14:35

Sorry, Trisha, I'll get off your lawn.

I'm not THAT much younger than several of you! Well, Sperose, at least.

posted by dismas 18 March | 14:46

In 10 years I'll be 51. Egad. My youngest will be 21, my oldest will be 28. I may be a grandmother then, who knows? Not to be morbid, but I'll be ecstatic if Mr. V is still with me, and survived his cancer. We hope to have relocated further south in the country, perhaps in the Carolinas. If not, I'll probably be working for the same company (heck, my pension only gets bigger with each passing year). I'll be happy with a small piece of land where I can have a garden and feed the birds. Work is work - it's not important to me. It's my family and friends that truly mean the most - their health and happiness. I'm hoping to reach 10 years with all the people I know now, and a few new ones.

posted by redvixen 18 March | 15:10

In ten years I'd like to be spending the majority of my time working on comics. I feel in my bones that marriage and kids is not what's in store for me, and I like it that way! It would be great to be debt free and maybe own a house. I'd settle for comics, own a house or comics, less fat. Not huge goals but I get all jinxy with that.

posted by Mrs.Pants 18 March | 16:55

With any luck, dead.

posted by dg 18 March | 17:05

Empty nesting.

posted by Doohickie 18 March | 17:30

My answer disturbs me a bit in its simplicity, but I hope that 10 years from now I am running, or very close to being able to run, my own investment fund.

posted by mullacc 18 March | 18:09

In ten years, I'll be 35. Based on my life so far, I know that any guesses I could make will be wildly off...ten years ago if I'd had a peek into my life I'd have been shocked as hell.

What I'd like? Oh, the usual.

To be further along in my chosen career field (or actually in it, considering I've taken a step away from it with my current job), which is media development. And to be making at least a comfortable living doing so. To own my own home and preferably not by the grace of a 60-year mortgage.

To have seen much more of the world (haven't left N. America yet). And to have someone to go on these adventures with, a spouse or partner of some stripe. Having kids is up in the air in my mind but I guess if I were going to do it I'd like to get a jump on it by my mid-thirties(see determining factors above: job, spouse, house).

I have felt 35 in my head since I was about six. So I think my thirties are going to be awesome. In my life so far, aging has been a bit scary but mainly it's been a relief. Hopefully the trend continues.

posted by SassHat 18 March | 18:11

i wonder what i'd do if i knew i'd be dead in ten years.
Probably get a cigarette because i kinda want one anyway.

posted by ethylene 18 March | 18:17

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