I Ain't Never Lookin' Back

I try to think back to my early 20's when I thought about what my life would by like once I reached my late 20's - where I am now. I remember being sure that I would be married young, because to have children too old and be an older parent just seemed abominable. I would have traveled to a few continents, met amazing people that shaped me and gave me knowledge from their own vast experiences. At least by 28 I would have 1 kid, a dog or 2, a picket fence (even if it was in my neighbor's yard and not my own) and a collection of books that filled the floor-to-ceiling bookcase my ever so handy husband had built for me in my dreamed-of library room. At 21, I was sure that 29 would look like the picture of every girl's dreams - full of love, home, stability and well...the inevitable.

I say inevitable and you'll probably start to think that I'm a fatalist and I didn't really believe any of those things would happen to me to begin with. In hindsight, I think my dreams at 20 were the dreams of a generation that believed that to be the path I should desire. To my own detriment at times, I am not one to follow a very well traveled path and at 29, I can tell you which part of that list has come to pass: I had a dog - I had to give him away to move home and finish school. I have traveled to a few continents - and each time I grow a little more and acquire a few more invaluable friends. I have not married "the man of my dreams". I haven't even figured out yet what that man really looks like. I'm definitely a little more jaded and a whole lot less optimistic; reality does that to one. And there is one more thing from the original list that I will be able to check off by the end of the year....

....and that is to welcome a little bit of joy to truly change my life forever, giving me something to love more than this single woman's quest to always love myself. On 15 November (or shortly before or after, you know how these things go) Grandchild Hill #2 is due.

I am excited, scared, worried, expectant, apprehensive (and the antithesis of yogi-esqu, hippy happy serene) and a million other emotions. It has always helped me to write and to read the thoughts of others who may be in similar situations as myself or have been there before so, I'll be writing throughout and I look forward to posting in a week or 2 the sex of the baby! It's the beginning of a lifetime's worth of journeys. And so it begins....no longer somewhere over the rainbow.