My Impossible Future

If I could imagine a future for myself that would make me the happiest, it would be living in Greece, by the beaches or on one of the islands, with a house overlooking the bay and a sailboat moored in sight.
 I would have a wonderful husband who would sail with me around the islands in the summer, and I would make gorgeous meals in my beautiful kitchen. I would be a writer with some success, I would go to the markets and have picnics on our boat, I would cure olives and have a wine cellar.
And I would have dinner parties all summer and mulled wine in the winter. We would be a close knit community and know our neighbors. I would have a moped and a cat named after one of the Greek gods. Castor or Pollux perhaps, or Hephaestus.

It's so idealistic, so romanticized, I don't even know if such a place could exist. But if it did, I think it would look something like this:
 A house on the hillsides of Greece, on one of the ancient islands which once housed Odysseus. This is where I would find my inspiration, where I could look out my window every day, and find true satisfaction.

Society tells me to be successful and have a career, that writing won't cut it, and I'll be destitute and desperate, living off my husband. Half of me wants to be ambitious, successful in my chosen field, the other half of me can think of nothing better than filling my days with hobbies and beach combing and cooking, a real old-fashioned house-wife (sans the children for now) and isn't it funny how I feel guilty and embarrassed to even admit that this could be my dream, because society dictates that those values are old-fashioned now, un-feminist, sexist even. Shouldn't fair values and an equal society simply mean that we have the freedom of choice, and whatever that choice may be, we should not be judged for it?

Sometimes I think we are all still just as stifled by society as ever, just in different ways.

On the nature of compliments

I have a funny thing about compliments. I cant accept them gracefully and it's not because I'm fishing, I just don't react well to them.
In all honesty, deep down its because I don't feel deserving of the comments. I think they are a lie to make me feel better while secretly they are judging me, thinking the opposite of their words, their eyes weighing me accusingly behind my back.
Sometimes they will make me smile and stand up taller, but the next moment I'm second guessing them, wondering what game they are playing, where it will come back to hurt me.
And isn't that just fucked up.

 I think a large part of this comes from the development of social media, and also society in general. We are told from the beginning, whether it is to our faces or subliminally -barbie dolls and ballet, makeup and the colour pink, supermodels and size four clothes - we are told how we should look, what a perfect girl should be like. And if we don't fit into that mold, woe on us.
High school is the hardest, made worse by social media. They smile and then behind your back, whisper things. School has its own society, and to be at the top requires ruthlessness, and the ability to claw your way there. One must stand on their 'lessers' to walk as giants.
And social media - that strange and abstract platform, where nothing feels real. Where one can be anyone, say anything, without real-world consequences. I cannot think of anything more dangerous, for without limits, we can become monsters.