If you had told me ten years ago that ten years in the future I would be with the man I had started dating a decade earlier, I'd live in a beautiful cape next door to my parents with a seven year old and a German Shepard, and I would reject a weekend in New York City staying at The Waldorf for a half-birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese for my niece, driving in a MINIVAN, and opening day for my son's baseball team, I would have said you were crazy.
I may have died laughing.
Or I could have gone in the opposite direction.
I may have contemplated suicide on the spot.
I wasn't dating. I wasn't looking to date. I was NEVER going to get married. I certainly wasn't going to birth any of my own children.
I was certainly going to be a successful Manhattanite.
Living in a cape next to my parents house? No.
Returning to poe-dunk Charlestown was the worst case scenario.
A fashionable apartment in Manhattan's up-and-coming neighborhood filled with swanky gorgeousness? Yes.
But the alternate universe is the truth.
I did reject a free weekend in New York for time at home with the family.
I was worried about whether I could physically handle NYC with a seven year old.
I've always walked everywhere.
But I also really preferred the relaxation and comfort of staying home over vacation and bonding with the ones I love.
How is that for growing up?
My seventeen year old self never would have accepted this alternate version of life.
She would have balked and called the lifestyle a failure or common.
Hopefully, that's all the information the crystal ball would have shared, because if it had also said, "You will be 50 lbs. heavier with a hack saw neck and hairy back from having cancer for over four years." I definitely would have taken the razor to my wrists.
That's why we don't get to see the future.
We're different people under different circumstances and we don't have all the information.
It is similar to life.
We don't get to have all the information. We don't get to understand why everything is happening to us. We just have to have faith that there is a reason, and someday, we'll understand, because on that day, at that time, we'll be different. We'll be better.
1 comment:
Truer words were never spoken. We do indeed have no idea of the future, and we can either approach it with fear and trepidation, or with hope and joy. I have always tried the latter. I have often failed. But I have always tried.
I too wanted a glamorous life in the big city. I too was very happy with my domestic life once I had it. I loved to travel when I could; I loved staying home when I couldn't.
The bottom line is that we need to be happy where we are right now.
Thanks, Hillary, for putting all of that into such heartfelt words.
Keep on keepin' on!
Carol
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