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January 26, 2008
What if the question is the answer?
Propped myself up this morning to do my taxes and, in an attempt to put
off grocery shopping, began surfing the intarwebs. Let me tell you, it
always makes me feel insignificant and incredibly boring when I do this.
Not only do I not post very often but I don't have anything original or
insightful to say.
SO, in an attempt to be relevant, I'm going to pretend that I got tagged with a meme and post my own answers to the question "5 things I never pictured in my future when I was 25".
Let's see, can I even remember 25?? That would be 1989, I had been married for three years, out of college for one year, and I was an advertising clerk working at the Salem Evening News, a local newspaper with a readership of 90,000. I was feisty, opinionated, and unhappy. I was married to someone who was not what I thought he was when we met and I was feverishly trying to do anything to make him happy. We were living in a rented apartment (half a house) and he changed jobs frequently ... we lived in constant fear of repossessions and bill collectors ... and my measly salary was barely enough to pay the bills. Here's what I never pictured in my future ...
1) Children. Look up dysfunctional in the dictionary and there's my family. I didn't think I should have kids because I thought I was going to be a horrible parent. I had to learn how to be a good parent by doing the opposite of what was done to me.
My kids, however, became my reason to keep living. My son was born in '91, my daughter in '93, and my devotion to them has made me keep fighting, long after most would have given up. They have turned out alright, I think. Thanks, chillins. You rock.
2) Divorce. When I said "...until death does part us", I meant it. I didn't want my kids to ever go through divorce like I did ... I became determined to keep it together even if my marriage killed me. And it almost did. Getting divorced was one of the most dreaded, most dangerous decisions I've ever made in my life. We're talking restraining order, going to the family violence shelter to hide kind of dangerous. I could not allow that man to put his hands on my children or me ever again.
In the end, I had to decide that I would rather them go through divorce than think that marriage was supposed to make you miserable.
3) Owning my own home!! Ok, this one I thought I would have well before I was 43 but at 25, I was beginning to realize that my husband and I would never be able to own our own home. That realization is what made us move to the South when I was 30 ... and the next 6 years was spent running up so much debt that the dream became a painful sore spot. It wasn't until last year, with distance from him and some judicious money management on my part, that I was able to apply for and get a mortgage ... on my own. So now I own my very own house.
Owning my own home is kind of a disappointment, though. I always dreamed I would do this with someone else, not on my own. Now I'm extremely proud that I did this by myself but it's not what I wanted. I wanted a home, a marriage, a family, a dog, the whole enchilada. Guess I have to take what I can make for myself, though.
4) Owning my own NEW car!!!! Ha, this is something I always dreamed of but knew I wouldn't be able to do on my own. Every car/truck/van I had my name on also had the x's name on it and I was left with nothing after the divorce, even though I was the one making the payments while he was off carousing for a year.
I payed cash for a (very) used van before this and, while LaTonya was a sweet gas-guzzling ho, she went all asplodey on us late one night. The next morning I found myself at our local Toyota dealer, praying I would be able to afford something, anything. She's not much but my 2005 'Yota is da bomb-diggity and she has the heart of a lion.
5) True love. Yeah, by 25 I had figured my chance for any kind of love was over. I was stuck with who I had chosen and doomed to never know what it felt like to be loved. I didn't deserve love, I was told, and I was lucky to get what I had. I thought I had loved in the past, and now looking back, I can see that I had truer, deeper feelings for one of my college boyfriends than I ever did for my X, but that was a doomed relationship also. Truly loving and being loved was foreign to me, until I had my children. I never knew that I would willingly die for someone or that I could find a reason to live in such a small package.
That's not the only love I have, though. I've learned that I am lovable, that I can love, that I deserve to be happy just like a normal person, because I found T. He's the real deal I never thought I would get a chance to find.
I realize now there are so many more things I never thought I would do in my future ... go back to school (twice!), survive a flood, become a teacher, ride a roller coaster, go to a drag race, and the list goes on and on. Basically, thinking about these "5 things that I never pictured in my future when I was 25" has made me realize that, at 25, I never thought I was going to have a future. Guess I was wrong.
How about you?
SO, in an attempt to be relevant, I'm going to pretend that I got tagged with a meme and post my own answers to the question "5 things I never pictured in my future when I was 25".
Let's see, can I even remember 25?? That would be 1989, I had been married for three years, out of college for one year, and I was an advertising clerk working at the Salem Evening News, a local newspaper with a readership of 90,000. I was feisty, opinionated, and unhappy. I was married to someone who was not what I thought he was when we met and I was feverishly trying to do anything to make him happy. We were living in a rented apartment (half a house) and he changed jobs frequently ... we lived in constant fear of repossessions and bill collectors ... and my measly salary was barely enough to pay the bills. Here's what I never pictured in my future ...
1) Children. Look up dysfunctional in the dictionary and there's my family. I didn't think I should have kids because I thought I was going to be a horrible parent. I had to learn how to be a good parent by doing the opposite of what was done to me.
My kids, however, became my reason to keep living. My son was born in '91, my daughter in '93, and my devotion to them has made me keep fighting, long after most would have given up. They have turned out alright, I think. Thanks, chillins. You rock.
2) Divorce. When I said "...until death does part us", I meant it. I didn't want my kids to ever go through divorce like I did ... I became determined to keep it together even if my marriage killed me. And it almost did. Getting divorced was one of the most dreaded, most dangerous decisions I've ever made in my life. We're talking restraining order, going to the family violence shelter to hide kind of dangerous. I could not allow that man to put his hands on my children or me ever again.
In the end, I had to decide that I would rather them go through divorce than think that marriage was supposed to make you miserable.
3) Owning my own home!! Ok, this one I thought I would have well before I was 43 but at 25, I was beginning to realize that my husband and I would never be able to own our own home. That realization is what made us move to the South when I was 30 ... and the next 6 years was spent running up so much debt that the dream became a painful sore spot. It wasn't until last year, with distance from him and some judicious money management on my part, that I was able to apply for and get a mortgage ... on my own. So now I own my very own house.
Owning my own home is kind of a disappointment, though. I always dreamed I would do this with someone else, not on my own. Now I'm extremely proud that I did this by myself but it's not what I wanted. I wanted a home, a marriage, a family, a dog, the whole enchilada. Guess I have to take what I can make for myself, though.
4) Owning my own NEW car!!!! Ha, this is something I always dreamed of but knew I wouldn't be able to do on my own. Every car/truck/van I had my name on also had the x's name on it and I was left with nothing after the divorce, even though I was the one making the payments while he was off carousing for a year.
I payed cash for a (very) used van before this and, while LaTonya was a sweet gas-guzzling ho, she went all asplodey on us late one night. The next morning I found myself at our local Toyota dealer, praying I would be able to afford something, anything. She's not much but my 2005 'Yota is da bomb-diggity and she has the heart of a lion.
5) True love. Yeah, by 25 I had figured my chance for any kind of love was over. I was stuck with who I had chosen and doomed to never know what it felt like to be loved. I didn't deserve love, I was told, and I was lucky to get what I had. I thought I had loved in the past, and now looking back, I can see that I had truer, deeper feelings for one of my college boyfriends than I ever did for my X, but that was a doomed relationship also. Truly loving and being loved was foreign to me, until I had my children. I never knew that I would willingly die for someone or that I could find a reason to live in such a small package.
That's not the only love I have, though. I've learned that I am lovable, that I can love, that I deserve to be happy just like a normal person, because I found T. He's the real deal I never thought I would get a chance to find.
I realize now there are so many more things I never thought I would do in my future ... go back to school (twice!), survive a flood, become a teacher, ride a roller coaster, go to a drag race, and the list goes on and on. Basically, thinking about these "5 things that I never pictured in my future when I was 25" has made me realize that, at 25, I never thought I was going to have a future. Guess I was wrong.
How about you?
