My Peter Pan syndrome

Ever since I've gotten back from the Carribean to Belgium, I've been feeling...restless...is the closest named feeling in the Enlgish language that can describe it.

According to popular songwriters, this must be something lots of twenty-somethings can relate to but sometimes I feel so many people around me seem to have all their things in place and are -more important and even more amazing- quite content about it and without hesitating are planning the next step. At the age of 26, are we all supposed to have a steady relationship, an appartment where we live with our fabulous partner and preferably a cat, as so it seems to be the trend? Should I as well be concerned about intrest rates and locations on where to buy or even build my even more fabulous house with a big cellar and room for a pony? In contrast to my fellow engineer-buddies, I don't have anything even closely resembling a career path defined and looking at all different possibilities on where to go/live/work I just wanna roll up in my bed and sleep for the rest of the week. Should I be able to answer the "where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

These are clearly all luxury problems, I do realize this. My country of birth, my great parents, my education, my university degree and my good health make I can go anywhere. But doesn't everyone in my situation feel like a little kid in a candy store, or even an ant in a world made out of candy? What to pick when your stomach is so small? Don't you all want to get the maximum out of life but doubt on what you'd actually like the most? Sure, your house is amazing and your job is fine, but maybe you could be happier in a house in Melbourne and maybe the perfect job for you isn't located in Brussels but in Barcelona? How can we fully choose something if we don't even have a remote idea of what we are missing out on when choosing option A?

Before you all start the spoilt-kid-name-calling; 2008 has been a great year for me, probably one of the most exciting ones so far. I liked living in Madrid and I loved living in the Dominican Republic even more. Why wouldn't I, the amount of great people I've met, places I've seen, friends I've made and life experience I gained, make me realize I can be happy in so many different places and situations. But I also remember I missed la petite belgique while living my dreams. I remember the exact same feeling of restlessness of my mind.

Probably, all my living abroad caused the situation I'm in. Kid in a candy world... also Alice in Wonderland- or Peter Pan-feelings pop up every now and then. But does this mean I'm sorry for anything I've done? I'm tempted to shout out a loud no, but honestly, I can not know what would have happened. If I had never left Belgium (starting in 2003 to Barcelona), I would have limited the amount of thunderstorms in my head and my life could have been flawless, spectacular house, hubbie, defined career path and -why the hell not- maybe even a cat included. Not only is it so difficult to make life choices, it is even impossible afterwards to fully evaluate your choices. Even if we were given a rewind-button on life, we wouldn't know if to use it or not.

I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes with this post. I honestly sometimes envy those who seem so much at ease in Belgium while my head keeps on turning over and over again instead of just enjoying my life. I merely want to point out that I believe it's wrong to ignore all the options we have.
Our generation is the first one that has all of these options. The world has become our (though lightly oversized) backyard, the only limit we really have are time and guts (and some cash every now and then). For myself, I can only try to enjoy the ride and hope the wind will calm down at some point in time.