Awakening. . . The sleeping giant tells me its time to wake up
I had an awakening… but to tell you about it – I’m going to have to walk you through the excise that go me there.
A cute pigtailed kid (yup…still hair obsessed 😉 ) sitting in class, eight years old was told to work on her Social Studies project. The project, to the teacher, seem undaunting enough. However, would Mrs. X ever really understand how damaging that thing really was?
The project was to do an art time line, and I remember it like it was yesterday. We were supposed to do a time line of all of the “major events” of our lives, and plot them on graph paper, do pretty drawings of those events, and then set them as goals. You need to remember that I was in a class full of insanely smart people, and even at that time, most of them knew where they were going with life, what they wanted, and who was going to go with them.
Me? Well, I took a look around, and decided… “Well, everyone else is going to University, guess I need to put that on there.”
“Oh look, married. Yup, gotta do that.”
“First job, yup, $100,000.000 sounds about right for a starting salary.”
Now, most people would not remember this excersie, and yet for me, its some kind of time continum hell – because I keep going back to this project time and time and time again in my mind. At 25 there was a mini-break down when I realized I was significantly behind on my time line – this was ofcourse punctuated by a run in with Mrs. Mussin at the local market where she asked what I was up too. I had not walked out of University with a degree, a $100,000.00 year job, or a husband. My children (2 according to the time line) were yet unborn, and I had not written my first book – completed law school – or . . . well you get the picture.
Mrs. X tells me she’s run into others who are in medical school, doing teachers college, nurses, even someone working for Disney doing design. What was I doing? I couldn’t exactly admit I was … well, I hadn’t really figured that part out yet.
So, then at 26 I decided to do a five year plan. I very firm five year plan. But with a five year time line – and then go for it.
1- get married
2 – have kids
3 – go to teacher’s college (cause I have an English and History degree, that’s what you do)
4 – be happy.
I was haivng dinner with friends the other night when the awakening happened. A good friend of mine is turning 30, and she has been saying for years “I won’t do that until I’m 30”. Something included online dating, buying a house, amoung other things. We’ve teased her a bit, because those are things we’ve done before we are 30, and continue to do that. But her five year plan didn’t include any of that kind of thing. Then this weekend, she told us about her new 5 year plan – which now included her own home. And I realized my life plans could change.
I know – not a brainer for most- but for me… magical… cause here is where I stand on the old five year plan.
Seems pretty good – right? Well…
1 – Got married (check) … did I mention that I am getting divorced?
2- Have kids (missed this bullet… thank goodnes!!)
3 – go to Teacher’s College (check) Went.. realized I don’t really like kids that much. And if I ever want to have any of my own, bad idea to spend all day with other peoples..
4 – be happy (work in progress).
So, I told my friends about this – they laughed and said “Yes, being stuck on that old life plan is silly”. And the fact that it, and Mrs. X, still haunts me – well that is just crazy.
Then one of my best friends since childhood walked over and said something very profound:
“I remember that damn thing. I remember hating it. You know what? I put on it that I was going to be an astronaught. And today I have a picture of a missle taking off – lauching a satalite into the air – that comes from the company that I work for. It has nothing to do with me – or what I do for a living – but I pretend I launched something into space. So… that’s what I think of when I think of Mrs. Mussin’s time lines.”
As you are reading this (on the 24th…) I’m recovering from a hangover, and on a plane back from Vegas. I’m positive I had a great time… and promise… I’ll let you know some of what happens.
Cause, I’m learning “What happens in Vegas….”
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