“We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
-Joseph Campbell
Happy Wednesday to all my readers! I’m so excited that I’m going home tomorrow I can hardly contain myself. I haven’t been home in a long time and some of my friends have had babies and are in town and I haven’t seen some of them in forever so I’m soooo excited that I’m just typing and not really using any correct grammar or punctuation.
But let’s talk about this week’s quote and why it is relevant to my life. Since I’ve been a little girl I have planned out my life. I was ALWAYS going to marry Jeremy Bence- there, I said it. This was from about kindergarden to fifth grade. [I have not spoken to or even seen him since 5th grade.] Then there was Robbie, then Jordan, Cole and then there was high school. I started dating my first real boyfriend my junior year of high school and I assumed we were going to be getting married. After all, his older siblings were in super committed relationships and married the people they had started dating in high school (except for his sister- she met her husband in college). I had no idea what we were going to do with our lives. I figured like all his siblings he would be a doctor [he’s an engineer now].
After Brian there was Andy. Andy was my high school sweethart and I did honestly believe I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. We were both going to go to college- hopefully close to each other- and that at 24 we would get married. 4 years later we were going to have our first child. We wanted a boy and a girl. The boy was going to be named after him and we were going to name our little girl Zoe. He was going to follow semi in his father’s footsteps but mainly in stocks and financial services. I was going to be a police officer and then I decided I would be a stay-at-home mom.
Then there were some guys who went as soon as they arrived. I was more focused on my own future: being a movie/music video producer. I still always dreamed that I would be married at 24 after being engaged for roughly a year and having my first child at 28. Along came Keaton, we start dating when I was 21 and within six months I moved in to his house with him. This, I thought, was the guy I was going to marry. He was three years older, owned his house and had a stable, well-paying job. I thought it was prefect and started making the house a home- I painted and hung up photos and other wall art and made sure that the fridge and freezer were always stocked. I figured I’d be engaged at 23 and be living out my dream of getting married at 24. I treated our puppy like a child thus proving how good of a mother I would make. This happiness unfortunately did not last.
I am 23 now and my dreams of getting married at 24 are now slim to none. And slim is getting ready to leave town on the next bus out. That’s a rude awakening because I’ve wanted to be married at 24 since I was 17 years old. Then I’m going to have to decide if I want to wait 4 years still to have my first child or have it at 28 anyway. The problem is- having children after 30 is incredibly difficult for the women in my family and I don’t know if I could handle having multiple miscarriages.
Additionally, I’ve always been so set on what I’ve wanted to do with my life. Of course, my dream career has changed but I’ve always had an idea of where I wanted to go. But maybe my life would be a little bit better if I just went with the flow and wasn’t so set on how I wanted it to be. Because trying to plan everything out is super stressful- and that’s stress that I don’t need. Who knows, maybe the life that is waiting for me is even better than the one that I planned.
xoxo