This year has been a crazy one and my writing hiatus is over! I often wonder how I will feel about 2013 when I reflect back years from now. It is only days before Christmas no lights are hung, no tree is decorated and not one present wrapped. Why you may ask... because both my hubby and I have been working 11+ hour days. This year has been non stop. It feels like it took forever to get to December yet everything was going 90mph at the same time.
Like a buffet, I have been sampling life. Different ideas, activities and experiences. At times it is overwhelming but last night I was with a group of amazing woman and a few guys. This group of people are accepting, caring and understanding. They helped me to realize that I am in a place of transformation. I am grieving the loss of my childhood and embracing the gain of my adulthood. Comparing the expectations that the 10 year old me had for myself is nothing like what my life has become. I think many of us go through this phase. You feel like you must have failed since your are "grown up" and not a fireman or a surgeon like you may have pictured. When your 4th grade teacher asked you to write what you would be and told you that you could be anything when you grow up. She gave me an A for my well thought out plan of success and thusly I thought it to be something I needed to achieve. She was right but not in the way I thought she meant it. I could be anything, there is no way of knowing, guessing, or wishing, because anything can happen; anything did happen. You don't choose where life takes you, you can only choose how you react to it.
Coming to the realization that I am not going to be any of those things was hard at first and then I realized its not a big loss. The life I laid out on two sheets of college rule paper would have been lonely and lacking all of the people that I love and cherish today. Would it have been the right life for me? No. Life as I am living it now is an adventure in all of the best and worst ways. Some days I want to scream, somedays I do scream. Most days though I smile, laugh and feel blessed because I am. I can't say that I will miss 2013 but I can say that I am excited about 2014. I know that in it I will finish this journey and become complete.
