Journal Day #14

Think about the plans you had for your adult self when you were younger- would you say they match up to your reality today? What did you wish for your future when you were a child? Did you have a plan? And would you say you've followed that plan in any way? This week, look at the life you hoped to have (even if you consider your childhood "dreams" silly now) and see how your current life compares.

 little us- my sister (on the right) and me.

First of all, I just wrote "I can still remember when 30 was old" and couldn't figure out why that line sounded so familiar. I have a tendency to repeat myself from time to time in posts so I assumed I had written it before, but then it came to me that it's a line from "Strawberry Wine." Ha! Anyone remember that song? It's pretty perfect though, because that song reminds me of high school, which takes me back to all of the silly/amazing/naive ideas I had about my future, and what I hoped it would be like.

Growing up I was always very idealistic (still am), and I definitely always had an idea in my head of what I thought my future should be. Granted, it would change regularly, but it always included some sort of extreme move- New York City being the most popular destination of my imaginary future- and living with all of my girlfriends and little sister. I'm not too sure if I ever dreamed of getting married like most little girls do. I mean, I'm sure I did at some point but when I think back to what I hoped for it was usually some sort of career. At my youngest I recall wanted to be a flight attendant (stewardess actually, since we're talking about the 80s) or a cruise director. That lasted for some time until I moved on to a million other futures, and later decided I wanted to be a lawyer, which held up almost all the way until applying for law schools, which I eventually never did.

I think at the root of it though, my "plan" was just to always surround myself with the people I love. Family always came first for us growing up, so naturally family continued to be first, including the friends that became my family over the years. I remember having this list in the 9th grade. It was a LONG list, of maybe 100 bullet points, that listed all the requirements of my future partner. And at the very end was a huge disclaimer that said something like "if this guy has all of these thing but still doesn't make you laugh every single day, RUN!" My, how smart my 14-year old self was.

But I can remember being so young and feeling like my current age now, was so old. God, 32. And now I feel like it's really not old at all. I think when I was a child I would have envisioned my life now a little differently. Perhaps I would be traveling around the world, living in NYC, or on a boat somewhere. I'd be a writer for sure, possibly for National Geographic, off to here and then to there...everywhere. But instead I'm a former high school English teacher (never saw that one coming) turned stay-at-home Mom to two boys, married to a man I've been with for a decade! It just goes to show, you never know what life has in store.

So no, I don't think my life now is quite how I would have envisioned it when I was a kid, but I'm also the funny little girl who had four baby dolls ("quadruplets!" I'd be sure to tell you) named Kelsey, Chelsey, Bryan, and Ryan and was determined to raise them on my own somewhere between being the first woman President orrrr being a cruise director on Norwegian Cruise Lines (even though I'd never been on a cruise in my life and still get violently seasick). I didn't make a whole lot of sense. But however random my future dreams were, I do think my child and teenage self would be pretty damn proud of the reality we came into after all, and my six year old self would be especially excited to know I'm already halfway to having those four little ones. ;)

So how about you? Leave a comment below with a link to your post, and a little excerpt too, if you'd like!

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