April 18, 2021

Hello You,

I’ll come back to S and I, Part Four, later.

363 days to another milestone and it’s hitting me harder than I thought. Ha. Growing up, at my dad’s, we celebrated birthdays for three days. They said, you wait all year for that one day to come, and then it is over in the blink of an eye. So, to make it last longer, we celebrated the day before, the day of, and the day after. Your pre-birthday, birthday, and post-birthday. On your pre and post birthday you got to pick the meal you wanted for dinner. I always picked pork chops, macaroni and cheese, spinach souffle, and apple sauce. The world revolved around you for 3 days, it was fantastic. But that need to make it last longer has faded. I still like to wish my friends and family a happy pre and post birthday but for me, it can fly under the radar.

It feels like it was a week ago that I was in Summer 1, Finance class, teasing the guy that sat behind me about being almost 30. He was barely in his late 20s. But at that time, 30 was so far away. Eons! And it feels like just yesterday that I was giving my friend a hard time because he only had a couple more weeks before he was 30! Yesterday he turned 40.

Now that I’m looking 40 in the face, I can’t help but think, “this is so different than where I saw myself at this point in life.” I had a plan. I was going to be married, I was going to have a dog, a house, and 5 kids. Yes, 5 kids. I wanted a big family. When I was little, I didn’t want to be the Teacher, the Nurse, the Veterinarian, I wanted to be the mom. Having a career was never my priority. S and I were headed down that path, we had the marriage, the house, and the dog. The only thing left was the kids. We never got to the kids part of the plan.

After getting divorced, I thought, “that picture, that dream, it could still happen. This is just a bump but there was still plenty of time. So, maybe I wouldn’t have all five kids, that’s ok.” It’s 11 years later, and I feel like that picture is starting to disappear. Maybe it’s not in the cards for me. Maybe my road leads somewhere else. But where?

xoxo