Letting Go of Plans

We all make plans...some of us follow through painstakingly thought out plans for our lives getting benchmarks along the way to mark our progress as we strive toward a set goal, some of us just put a finish line in your head and head in what we consider that general direction....hoping we reach our destination eventually.

I have a nebulous idea of what, ultimately, I want to accomplish in life. I want to continue my education, to have a child, to travel, to find a career that I enjoy and that I feel I am successful at, and most of all to not be alone! I try not to pin myself down to specifics, how much education, a boy or a girl, who I want to be with what specific career...I'm open on these parts, but as I approach 40 I feel this growing urgency inside myself to achieve one or more of these things soon.  Is that a good thing? Should I be buckling down and making something happen, or should I let go of the "things" I think I need and learn to just accept where life takes me? So often we hear that our unhappiness comes from being stuck by our plans. That if we just let go of the idea that we are supposed to do or have certain things in life we can find peace and joy in what we do have and where life takes us. Of course the people with this pithy advice don't bother to tell us how the fuck we're supposed to go about this letting go. Apparently it just happens and then all our anger and sadness will be gone, magically transformed into inner peace and serenity....

If you've read anything I've written previously you realize, of course, that I'm mostly talking about the having a child and not being alone part. 

I want to stop here and say please do not comment that I have friends and family so really I'm not alone...I appreciate the sentiment but it's bullshit and so past the point as to be annoying, family as in parents who will predecease me, a sister I have no relationship with and 2 brothers and a sister I have even less of one with, and various cousin and extended family I adore but all of whom have their own immediate family do not in fact count!

I am honest enough to admit my wanting a child is selfish, I want a piece of me that will go on, that I can love, and I know will love me, that I can mold because I think I would be good at being a mom. Is that why you should have a child? I don't know. What is a good reason? What is a non-selfish reason to want to be a parent? Is there one ultimately? I have no clue! I'm struggling still to accept the fact that my one (and seemingly only) shot ended the way it did. That I will never hold a baby that I carried inside my body, and brought into this world. I tell myself daily that it is just a fact, and that I need to take that dream from my heart and throw it away because it's just causing me pain, but I can't. I don't know how to unwant something so deeply embedded  inside myself. Any suggestions? 

As to the being alone....I try and imagine myself, 55 no one to share my life with, no one to sleep beside me his arms holding me at night, and I feel so sad and alone. I actually have accepted the fact that I will never be part of a couple, that was easier than the barren thing (lovely phrase that) , because I grew up surrounded by people doing it on their own. I never thought being married was a necessity to begin with, but as I get older I understand the women I've known that freaked out and grabbed someone they may have come to regret simply to avoid the trap of being lonely. I have more sympathy, certainly, that I once did for them.

I don't know what life holds, but lately looking into my future, it looks very bleak. Maybe it's an illusion and if I change perspective I'll see a wonderful vista of opportunity stretched out before me, but I don't know how to do that!