I recently saw a meme the other day that read:
" The lifestyle you wanted is permanently on hold" or something to that effect.
It came from one of those pages that have the witty quotes. As most things that I come across, it got me thinking. Remember that time, way back when, when you were young,trying to find yourself and daydreaming about the life you wanted to have. You know the one. The one where you marry your crush, you have a fantastic job that you love and your children are the envy of all your friends? The highly unrealistic one? Yup that one. It looks good inside your head, but the reality of it is just a dream. You can have certain aspects of it, but it isn't always going to work out according to how you plan it, as life goes, there will always be things that will happen to you that will change whatever perception you had on your lifestyle.
Like most people, I, too had my own dream of who I was going to be when I grew up. What I wanted out of life. The naive me was a person who tried her best to be a good person. A decent person. A person that wanted someone to accept her and love her. A person that wanted to have children. I had these expectations of what I thought I was going to get out of life. And boy did I sent the bar high. I think most people do and when we don't reach that bar, the element of disappointment is what drives a lot of people into depression, including myself.
I think the trick being, learning to change the things you can change and learning to accept the things you can't. They always say that life is what you make of it. In a sense there is some truth to that. I look at myself as the person to make those changes happen. Whether or not it's a change on views or things that I have to work on for my well being. Granted, it takes a lot of work to make yourself feel better about life, and life at times doesn't always work with you on help you achieve those goals. Sometimes it's what life throws at you that makes you realize what kind of person you are. It shapes you.
For myself, I never thought 20 years ago, that I would be married(to a US serviceman), a mother who has special needs children or be writing, but here I am. This wasn't the life I had envisioned for myself, but it is the life I have. Do I have some regrets? Yes. Everyone does. Everyone has those times or moments where they wished for a do-over. The older self going back and warning the younger self not to make a certain mistake. Although, when you look at it, its those mistakes and bad decisions, that made us who we are today. Learning from those mistakes and trying hard not to repeat them. Are there things that I, personally, would have done differently? Yes, but I accept that there things that have happened in my life that were beyond my control to fix or change. Its those things that have shaped the life I have now.
We all go through those days where we think to ourselves " I didn't sign up for this..". That thought always pops into my head, when it has been an extremely shitty day. Y'know the day I am talking about. That one where at least one or every child has thrown up in a place that needs to be scrubbed out, something has stopped working,you have somewhere to be and you are running late. Those days that try every ounce of patience you have. And you think to yourself.. this is not what I envisioned for myself. We all have those feelings and there is nothing shameful about having them either.
As for me, well I don't have the lifestyle my 20 something envisioned for herself. I have a lifestyle that has challenged me to grow as a person. I have a person who loves me for who I am and for who the person I am evolving into. I have children that teach me more about life than anything. Yeah I have had things happen that have definitely game changers to my dream, but in the long run it's those game changers that have made my lifestyle more realistic.
No I don't have the lifestyle I thought I ordered, but I do have one that has opened many doors that I didn't think I could open. And that is something I would never change, the ability change what I can and accept what I can't.
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