Figuring out who I want to be in 5 years is a difficult thing to conceptualize because as soon as I start to figure one thing about myself, someone or something comes along and causes me to question everything. With life as complex as it is right now, I’m not sure of who I am right now, let alone how I could possibly know who I want to be in 5 years?

Every time I turn another year older, life gets easier in one area and more complex in another. Over the years and decades as I have began gradually getting older and wiser, I realized a few things:

Your years as a teen are all about fun and battling with yourself about who you are and who the pressures of young age want you to be. 

Your twenties are about becoming acquainted with adulthood and beginning to figure out who the person behind the eyes you look through everyday really is. 

Your thirties are truly the time where you are an adult. Where you can wholeheartedly learn who you are, what you want, understand and love your body, and determine what makes YOU happy.

Thirties. That’s the decade I am in right now.

At 35 and a half years old at the start of 2024 I can say that this has been the decade where I have been able to take what I have learned about life, including career, kids, friendship, and marriage and have been able to figure out what I really want out of life. 

When I turned 35, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish during that year. It had places I wanted to travel to, career accomplishments I was determined to achieve, and most of all it said, “do what makes ME happy.” I wanted to emphasize the “Me” in the last sentence.

Up to this point at age 35, nearly every decision I’ve made, every path I’ve walked, and every step I didn’t take was for the sake of others in my life and doing what would make THEM happy and wouldn’t hurt THEM.

If it was a path that was going to hurt someone else, I didn’t walk it.

If it was a decision that others wouldn’t agree with, I didn’t make it. 

If it was an opportunity that negatively impacted others, I didn’t take it.

Everything up to this point that didn’t make me happy or wasn’t based around what would make my future life the best it could be, I didn’t see it through. 

Now today, at the start of 2024, I am writing out who I want to be in the next 5 years, which includes doing what is best for me. My new found realization is that whatever it is that I choose to do that will make me happy will in the end make those who love me, those around me, and those who depend on me happy too. 

In 5 years, I want to be a well engaged, happy mother who sings, dances, and spends time with her daughters without the weight of a struggling marriage on my shoulders. I want to be a mother who can be her authentic self without the opinions of others imposing on her quaintness.

In 5 years, I want my daughters to see me as a successful, hardworking woman who did what she needed to do to provide for her children. A mother who has been an educator, a student, a coach, an entrepreneur, an author, an ed tech product owner, a journalist, and a photographer —- all while being a present, loving mother. 

In 5 years, I want to be totally enamored and full of love to give. I want to live everyday with my best friend — someone who chooses me everyday. Someone whose addiction is me. Someone whose vice is me. Someone who comes to bed to pillow talk with me. Someone full of passion and desire as they touch me. Someone who kisses me every time like it’s their last. And someone who is absolutely in love with me for who I am, who I’ve become, and what I have to offer.

In 5 years, I want to be proud of myself. Proud that I did what it took to be authentically happy. Proud that I had the courage to follow the path for what was best for me. Proud that I prioritized my own happiness. Proud that I chose the life I needed in order to be the best version of myself for my children. 

Maybe it’s because it’s about who I want to be and less about what I want to be.

Another way to think about WHO I want to be in 5 years is to say that I want to be the girl in the coffee shop’s joy as she sits next to her partner drinking coffee. I want to be my best friend’s love and compassion for others. I want to be my daughter’s warmth and understanding.

In 5 years I want to be my colleague’s kindness. I want to be my sister’s courage and my brother’s wisdom. But most of all, I want to be my sister-in-law’s laughter and my neighbor’s strength. 

All those things together are WHO I want to be in 5 years. That’s the goal I have for myself by the time I turn 40 years old.

Similar to what Elle in Kissing Booth 3 says, I’m far from perfect and a long way from knowing everything, but I do know enough that I wanna be the very best parts of the people in my life that I love most. I only hope that in 5 years, I will be.