...about plans.

April 2, 2010

I just celebrated my 28th Birthday.

28.

2-8

Twenty-eight....

Yikes.

2 years until 30!

I know 30 is suppose to be a really important Birthday, but 28 seems like a really big one...a huge mile marker because it's ten years after High School. This time ten years ago I had Senioritis and couldn't wait to be out and enjoying my summer before going off to college!

I was starting my adult life. Out on my own (kind of), off to college to learn new things, meet new people, broaden my horizons and find myself.

I may have taken a detour on my path to adulthood.

When I was little, I had a plan. Most girls do. When I was 24 I would get married. At 26, after 2 years of marriage, I would have my first child, a boy. 2 years after that at 28 I would have my second, a girl.

Ok...so it wasn't much of a plan...more of a timeline. And yes, I recently realized there weren't really many personal goals for my development as a person other than Wife and Mother, having a house...which are wonderful things...but...you know...Women's Lib and all that crap.

Anyway, whatever...point is, I had a timeline. I did, ,at various times, think about what career I would have...and that changed frequently. And throughout college I had a vague idea where I wanted to end up and what I would be doing. And I even thought about changing the timeline altogether and being awesome, fast living single girl Ala Sex and the City.

Anyway...I ended up getting married at 23 (ahead of schedule!)...bought a house (very grown up)...turned 25 and after 2 years of marriage, no baby (behind schedule, but that was ok because technically I wasn’t suppose to have my first baby until 26…)...turned 26 and had a – divorce?

Whoops! Well that screwed my timeline all to hell....at 28, when I was suppose to be married with 2 children, I had no husband, no babies (to be fair a good thing as it turns out), no house and no career to speak of either...bit of crisis mode there.

I moved back in with my parents and I felt like I had taken a considerable step back in time on my timeline. And the funny thing is...I really did seem to be starting over. I went back. I was living at home working as a waitress...eerily similar to High School.

Eh! Who needs a timeline? :-) Turns out...I didn't. Maybe I had to go back to the start to correct a mistake...

After moving back home to the comfort of the very core of my support system, I started talking to an old friend again regularly. Almost exactly 8 years after we had first met.

I had met him when I was 18, just after High School as I was starting college....almost ten years ago now. We talked a lot and flirted a lot....I was crazy about him and he was crazy about me...though neither of us realized how much.

Exactly nine years ago this guy sent me a dozen roses for my 19th Birthday...the first roses I had ever received from a male that was not related to me or taking me to prom. A man I met when I first started college...way back when. Who met me just before I lost my way and was trying on different versions of myself...only to come back almost ten years later and realize the person I was then...is who I really am now. Only now I have more confidence and I am comfortable being that person...no longer feeling the need to impress. While trying on different Stephanies I was too confused and lost and focused on "finding myself" and looking everywhere but where I should have been looking to really see this man (there was also the fact he lived 5,000 miles away from me I was only 18 and not ready for the kind of commitment a relationship of great distance requires). And so we went from flirty and crazy about each other to just friends...good friends, the kind of friend you knew you would always have no matter how long you went without speaking...but just friends.

And suddenly, years later...I was back where I started. I had taken off all the other Stephanies, finally content with the one I was all along...but ironically I had lost everything else. My life as I knew it had crumbled and I had moved back to square one. Single, no career, no house...living at home. And in this square... was this man. We found ourselves both recent survivors of the break down and break up of a long-term, serious relationship. We were older and wiser…calmer and more patient and ready to really see one another and admit how we felt. Able to trust and commit across a long distance on a level we had never quite experienced before. And most importantly, as a result of the time and distance and our individual pasts...content to let time take us where she would.

And now, the boy who gave me my first dozen roses for my 19th Birthday, gave me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers bursting with vibrant color for my 28th.





And in a few months, almost exactly ten years after meeting and parting, after years of ups and downs and twists and turns, of joys and sorrows, loves and heartaches...the man I met at square one....will be my husband.

Funny how life works, isn't it? Part of me, every once in a while, wishes I hadn't taken that detour....that I had recognized my fiancé ten years ago for what he was then. That we would have had all this time together. But...I do think we had to go on the paths we did to get to where we are. The people we are now are capable of a very different kind of Love than we were then. And for all the time we were apart, not fully realizing the significance of our first conversation or the strong bond of friendship we were able to have over time and distance...we now appreciate each other so much more for it.

That's the thing about meant to be. Sometimes mean to be is meant to be later...after you've learned a few things. And eventually...when you're world is turned upside down and you have no choice but to let go and breath and not try so hard to find it...it finds you.

So here's to 28, educational detours, and finally coming home...Cheers!