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When future-tripping is getting you nowhere… fast

Time is freaking me out. Never have I been so acutely aware of it. It’s gotten to the embarrassing point that I’m horrified, mortified, even petrified to admit that sunsets—the beautiful moments that brought me so much joy, that I’d drive to any lookout to watch—now bring a fresh new brand of anxiety that sends an alarm through my body telling me, “hurry up, the day is almost done”. 

I know old people (lol, sorry) would tell us this all of the time when we were growing up, but damn, time moves so quickly. And before any of you mushroom-loving-fucks tell me, “time is but a construct,” yeah, I know. Thank you so much for being deeply unhelpful.

Because either way, whatever sequence I’m currently experiencing this reality in, time’s a bitch and she’s moving fast. 

It’s insane to think that when I was younger, all I wanted was to be older. Twenty-five—for some reason that was the age where I told myself I’d be an adult that had everything figured out. And now, one month before my twenty-eighth birthday, I can’t help but laugh at that optimistic little bitch—even though I know she’d be so unbelievably proud. 

I, like I’m sure many others reading this, was the type of child that wanted to grow up because I was excited at the idea of having a great big career. School, for me, was a means to an end. I’d even sit in class thinking about a potential summer internship and the type of magazine I’d one day work at. It’s how I’m wired and honestly, I love it about myself. This skill gives me the ability to be a fantastic fucking planner. I’m talking bird’s-eye-view type of planner where I can set a goal and completely reverse engineer it. With that, though, also comes something I need to be careful with—future tripping. 

I’ve spent so many days—days I admittedly barely remember—too caught up in planning and working towards my future that I completely forgot to exist in the here and now. I reference the last three years of living in Los Angeles as the best example of this. I made the choice to become a freelancer, and if I was going to leave a comfortable job with a big name, it better be for a fucking reason. “You better make it worth it,” I tell myself daily.

So while I love a little fire under my ass, this way of thinking often lends itself to me not actually being present at all. How could I be if I’m too hyper-focused on an outcome that isn’t here yet? How can I stop wishing away the day?

It’s why time is scaring me. Because each day that goes by I question whether or not I did enough, prepared enough, made enough calls, sent enough pitches, and whether or not, within that, I enjoyed any of it. Even if we’re not talking about work, did I feel the way the knife was moving while I was cooking? Did I ground into my body while I was stretching? Or was I just going through the motions again? 

I guess what I’ve realized is that everything in life is a dance. We just gotta exist within our own flow. And I just know there has to be a way to do both—to dream big, plan big, move big, and live big in each day. What I do know is that I really don’t want to wake up in another three years barely remembering my day-to-day. And although I’m working on it, I just haven’t figured it out yet.

***This article was originally posted on Gabriela Ulloa’s Substack.