Life, that is. I don't even know who "they" are (but "they" seem to have an opinion about everything, don't they?). I have these moments or trends of self-reaization. I can trip myself out thinking about how people have lived their lives and died and I never knew them--entire lives spent without my apparent influence--which definitely starts making me realize how small and insignificant I am. Maybe not to those around me, but in light of the billions of people on this earth. My God is an awesome God just to get everyone's names right. I can't even remember what I ate two days ago or what I wore. Probably the same jeans.
But two days ago I subbed at Lancaster High, my alma mater. I graduated TEN years ago! I remember high school, but it doesn't feel like ten years ago, and yet it does. Just ten years is a milestone. I could go to a reunion, if there was one. I wouldn't, but I could.
[As a side note, I find it funny that every time I mention my age or how long ago I did something, I always get casual comments from Older People who tell me things like "Wait until it's been 30!" or "If YOU'RE old, then I must be ancient!" or "You don't know what age is, child!" There is always someone older out there. But I can experience joy and sorrow and amazement at my own life and how quickly it's passing. It is OH-KAY for me to do this, despite that I am ONLY 28, which is not an "ONLY" to me but a "REALLY????"]
Anyway, so I graduated ten years ago. That year, all the seniors had the opportunity to decorate a brick that would be attached to a concrete wall to make a mural of sorts. So I see my brick there, with my maiden name and it takes me way back. To anatomy class, cross country, an exboyfriend that (thankfully) dumped me two weeks before I graduated. [Don't pity me: the NEXT DAY I was introduced to John] All these parts of my life that felt like the entire world then and now are just a fraction of a percent of my life experience now.
And now I'm married and "babied" and while I am so happy, it doesn't feel like I thought it would. Not bad. Just different. Like I thought I'd become an "adult"--whatever I thought that would be. I'd feel responsible and be busy and dress different and feel mature. ...... Well, I'm busy. And I HAVE responsibilities, but I don't necessaryily FEEL responsible. Most of the time I'm shirking on some duty or the other. And I definitely don't feel mature. John may jokingly (?) tell me I am a "mature lady" but that's not what I mean. So it's foreign to me that I am cycling through these major stages of life without dramatically changing as I'd hoped/feared/expected.
So I don't really change dramatically as I go through life then? Not really. It's kind of like a new haircut I guess. New look, but still the same. Just a couple wrinkles here. A rogue grey hair there. A little muscle tone loss residual from birthing a giant. That weird bulging vein thing on the back of my hands when I let my arms hang at my sides that I marveled at my mom for. Good ol' cellulite. I think that's why life feels so foreign sometimes. I am essentially the same inside and yet my circumstances & body are so different than ten years ago.
What is different about your life now that you never expected?
