Last night I was standing at the vanity in the bathroom washing my face, brushing my teeth, messing with my hair, etc. You know all the little things you can get involved with when trying to get to bed. I started inspecting the faint lines starting to creep in around my eyes. I generally feel good about my looks. I'd like to lose some weight and my hair is a bit short right now for me. These are minor complaints and can be changed with time and some effort. On the whole I'd say I'm aging nicely. I don't look my age and that is completely alright. I don't really know if this is how I expected to look at this age. 33 always seemed so far away, so distant. Now I'm there and I won't be here long. Man, time moves fast.
I was awake for some time after that. Lying in bed I thought of all the goals and ambitions I had so many years ago. I am not in any place that I thought I would be. I could never imagine the course my life would take. It's so strange the way things play out. I can only wonder what's ahead and sometimes I just laugh at the effort I put into planning. It's so futile. Life doesn't acknowledge my plans, it does what it pleases despite my schedules and wishes.
When I was a teenager being tortured in the local high school, making good grades and dreaming of the day I'd leave this one mule town, I planned on majoring in Psychology, getting my my masters, living on the west coast (Seattle,
mmmm..... Pearl Jam,
Soundgarden, Alice in Chains) running a successful practice and writing a best selling book. According to my plans you would have been able to catch me being interviewed on Good Morning America and Oprah among other popular shows. Nothing big...........just a normal, quiet life.
Things change and so did my plans. I traded Psychology for English. I kept the Seattle and had even arranged to quarter with my cousin who works for the Dept. of Transportation there. He sent me catalogs and information on community colleges within a bike ride from his condo. The ultimate goal was the University of Washington, my dream school. Sounds good, right? It felt awesome, I was finally getting out of here. I guess Life didn't take notice, it waltzed right into the middle of my wonderful plans in the form of S.P.
In less than a year I was married. I was also in my second semester at the community college here in Mule Town. Early childhood education has weaseled it's way into the title slot of my major. Things were moving along. S.P. wanted to move back to his hometown so we made plans to do so that fall. I would take the semester off and transfer to a school in West Tn. for the spring semester. Two weeks before we moved I discovered myself to be with child. No school in the spring. As Syd neared her first birthday I requested enrollment packages and planned my return to the world of higher learning. I didn't quite make as I soon found out I was carrying our second child. Two years later I was working on the third and somehow S.P. had gone off to school and I was at home with the babies. Don't get me wrong I loved being home with my babies, that was something I had planned to do, just much later.
Things changed again and I found myself back in
Muleville, alone, faced with raising my children pretty much alone. I won't go into the details of that first year. I've shared them before. It was a dark, dark time filled with sickness, death, and abandonment. I rose from those black ashes and new plans were formed. I started a new path. I finally made it to the university and have a new major, one I would have never imagined, Accounting. When Did suggested it to me several years ago I just laughed. I'm not a math major, I dreamed of Psychology or English, not math. I couldn't shake the thought. I decided to try it on and found it fits quite nicely. So here I am.
What's next? I'm not sure.Where will I end up? I hope I know. It's a roomy old farmhouse with lots of space for the imaginations of three busy children. Somewhere we can spread out and come together. A place where we can have a garden and grow flowers and have forts and secret hideouts. A place where we can snuggle up or hang a disco ball and dance. Outside you'll find a menagerie of animals, all beloved and named with creativity, meaning and lots of thought. Inside you'll find a home, the place where we live, our final destination.
