A million lifetimes

Do you ever feel like you need a million lifetimes to do everything you want to do?

I want to be a writer. I want to write a magazine column for New York and a newspaper column for the Times. I want to write a novel. And a non-fiction book about living in New York. And perhaps a screenplay.

But I also want to continue to work in advertising. I love working at ad agencies! Maybe I could move to Seattle and work on the Starbucks account. Or I could work in marketing for NBC? Or for the Food Network! Oh and I've been thinking about advertising sales...

But I've always wanted to own a coffee shop. Or a bed and breakfast. Or a tea room. Or a gift shop. Maybe a tea room with a gift shop? Or cupcakes! I'll run a cupcake bakery. Or maybe just a cute cafe that makes chicken salad sandwiches and sweet tea.

Ahhh sweet tea. I want to live in the South again. I love Atlanta. There are the cute houses with front porches in the Highlands...or those amazing lofts in West Atlanta! Oh but I've always wanted to live in Nashville. And there's Athens, the Promised Land! I could definitely live in a house off campus and go to every home football game in the fall and stroll downtown in the spring. I'll have a white picket fence, a husband, three kids and a golden retriever.

And I could be a professor. That's it! I'll get my MBA...at Wharton? Or Vanderbilt? Or NYU? Or Georgia State? And then I'll get my doctorate and teach marketing courses at my alma mater. Or I could do student affairs. Or work in admissions. Or development?

Too many choices. Maybe I'll just stay in New York. I'm finally living in my favorite neighborhood, the Upper West Side. But I have always wanted to live in the East Village. And the West Village. And maybe right off Gramercy Park, just once? And I want a roof deck with Chinese lantern lights! And exposed brick! And a working fireplace!

And I'll frequent JFK. I'll return to the places I love...to Southern California. To Boston. To London. To Paris and Cinque Terre. And I'll travel to the places I've never been, Austin and Portland and Las Vegas and Hawaii. Barcelona and Prague and Budapest and Greece. Thailand and Bora Bora and Australia.

Or maybe I'll go indefinitely and be a waitress at a European cafe. Maybe I'll be a bartender at a beach in the sand. Maybe I'll run a bakery in the South of France and sell chocolat. Maybe I'll move to Italy and learn Italian, or Spain and perfect my Spanish.

Maybe.

I don't know how it all fits together, or if it's even possible to see it all, to be it all, to experience it all, to do it all, to have it all. Actually, I'm certain it's not.

Which is exactly why I need a million lifetimes to do everything I want to do.