December Talking Meme
Dec. 16th, 2013 08:37 pmI'm a day late with this, but here goes:
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atpo_onm asks "when you were half the age you are now, was life turning out the way you'd anticipated, and were there things you'd change if you could?"
33 years is a long time! I can hardly remember what I was thinking and feeling way back then, but casting my mind back into the deep past, I see that I was a rather different person then than I am now. At 33, my life had already taken a couple of unforeseen curves: I was married at 21, and having bought into the societal norm, believed I would be married, have kids and live happily ever after. Didn't happen. I was divorced at 27, luckily was childless, and had to face being on my own. It took me the next 5 years to figure out how to do that, but by the time I was 33 I'd come to the conclusion that I could just about manage it. Still, I hadn't given up on my old expectations of living a "normal life", getting married and settling down. I wasted a lot of energy trying to make those expectations come true, and looking back now, I can see that I hadn't really overcome the feelings of inadequacy that the breakup of my marriage had left me with. If I could redo it, I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to find my soul mate, and I would have put more energy into finding the things that make me stronger on my own. I spent a lot of time feeling isolated, instead of getting out and making my life what I wanted. But then, everything I did, and every experience I had, led me down the path that in the end brought me here, to the woman I am today. I think that if I'd done anything differently it would have made me different now, so I don't know that I'd make any changes. I might have avoided some of the more embarrassing moments, though. That might be a bonus..but even the stupid things I did were experiences to learn from.
Career wise, 33 years ago I started working in ICU. I never would have believed that all these years later I'd still be there! I remember wondering how anyone could work at one job for 30 years or more; it just seemed like such an eternity. Well, that shows what I knew, eh?
Over all, I would say that I believe that life usually turns out to have a lot of curve balls. You just never can predict where you'll end up! 33 years ago, I wouldn't have ever seen myself doing what I'm doing now. Expect the unexpected, and deal with it. That's the lesson I learned all those years ago, and it holds true today.
atpo_onm asks "when you were half the age you are now, was life turning out the way you'd anticipated, and were there things you'd change if you could?"33 years is a long time! I can hardly remember what I was thinking and feeling way back then, but casting my mind back into the deep past, I see that I was a rather different person then than I am now. At 33, my life had already taken a couple of unforeseen curves: I was married at 21, and having bought into the societal norm, believed I would be married, have kids and live happily ever after. Didn't happen. I was divorced at 27, luckily was childless, and had to face being on my own. It took me the next 5 years to figure out how to do that, but by the time I was 33 I'd come to the conclusion that I could just about manage it. Still, I hadn't given up on my old expectations of living a "normal life", getting married and settling down. I wasted a lot of energy trying to make those expectations come true, and looking back now, I can see that I hadn't really overcome the feelings of inadequacy that the breakup of my marriage had left me with. If I could redo it, I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to find my soul mate, and I would have put more energy into finding the things that make me stronger on my own. I spent a lot of time feeling isolated, instead of getting out and making my life what I wanted. But then, everything I did, and every experience I had, led me down the path that in the end brought me here, to the woman I am today. I think that if I'd done anything differently it would have made me different now, so I don't know that I'd make any changes. I might have avoided some of the more embarrassing moments, though. That might be a bonus..but even the stupid things I did were experiences to learn from.
Career wise, 33 years ago I started working in ICU. I never would have believed that all these years later I'd still be there! I remember wondering how anyone could work at one job for 30 years or more; it just seemed like such an eternity. Well, that shows what I knew, eh?
Over all, I would say that I believe that life usually turns out to have a lot of curve balls. You just never can predict where you'll end up! 33 years ago, I wouldn't have ever seen myself doing what I'm doing now. Expect the unexpected, and deal with it. That's the lesson I learned all those years ago, and it holds true today.
