The Path of Life

I am incredibly lucky.  I have a wonderful family that loves and supports me in every way.  I have my date nights with my husband and the days out with friends or happy hour with the girls (plus my sassy).  On those rare occasions when I am all alone sipping tea, reading a book and relaxing, I find myself pondering my life and where it has taken me.

It is quite amusing that we all start out with plans.  They never work out quite the way we think, do they?  After my Kindergarten dream of becoming a green-haired nurse was crushed (read that here), I was adamant of becoming a child psychologist.  I was going to go to school forever and find myself a man in my 30’s to marry.  We would have 2.5 children within 5 years and he would stay home to raise them and keep house.

Not quite.  I did not feel ready to take on so many loans right out of high school to attend college and I did not know at the time about the help low income students get (good job school counselor), so I did what I thought was the best decision for me and I signed up with Uncle Sam and his Army.

If I had to do it all over again, I would still join the military.  It was a wonderful opportunity that I did not consider until my senior year in high school.  You sign a contract for a couple of years, which is the same commitment you make to a university, and you are trained not only in the classroom, but for life skills, too.

I met so many wonderful people and received a lot of important life lessons.  As an 18-year-old, I thought I knew all there was to know about the world.  After all, I was bilingual and knew the ways of life in two countries.  Ha!  My deployments were some of the best experiences and they taught me much.  I had a lot of growing up to do.   

I do not regret any of the life decisions I have made.  I am in my 30’s now and no, I am not a child psychologist and my husband does not stay home with our 2 children (but he gladly would if I only made enough to support us).  My life has been a whirlwind of here, there, everywhere!  Now that I am more settled, I can continue my education and one day become whatever I want to be.  Who knows what comes next?  That is what is great about life.  While I do have plans of what I want to come next, there are always forks in the road and different paths to take.  Revisit in 5 years and we will see where I am…