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April 03, 2006
45?! Nuh-uh.
Well, yeah, it's true. I'm 45 years old today. Who'd have thought I'd ever be this old? (not me, that's for certain).
I spent a whole lot of my life never getting past 18 - not in the sense of party-girl or teenage slacker or anything like that, but rather never living up to my potential, always feeling like I had never finished growing up, never felt like I had the authorization to be the success my abilities suggested (or screamed, depending on the day) I should be. Part of that was dropping out of college the first time. Part of it was never going back. Part of it was just never choosing it, never daring to step out, to see myself as more and better.
So nine years ago today I decided to do whatever I had to do to get back to college. I never imagined that decision would bring me here. And but for certain people, and a certain class that began on my birthday seven years ago, it wouldn't have. In those years, I have finally learned to see myself as a grown up, finally been able to come to grips with being childless, even when so many of my colleagues are either new parents (scroll down a bit to see pictures of the little cutie) or parents-in-waiting (though they have experience with son Ph), finally able to understand that the friends I make here do not make me, and when they or I leave here we may or may not continue and that's okay, finally able to look out to the future and not feel like there's a huge gap in my life, my soul, of unaccomplished goals.
I thought I knew back then how much college meant to me. I know now that I didn't really know. And every day, when this PhD program seems interminable, and living poor grinds on me, and I can't get my head, act, or words together, I remember that for the first time I am choosing, that I have selected the career for the second half of my life, and all that I invest in it will be worth it -- or I'll leave it, too, with no regrets. I will have done the thing that mattered the most to me, and when the next thing that matters the most comes along, I won't be afraid to pursue it.
And that is probably the best present of all. Happy birthday to me.
Posted by cageyer at April 3, 2006 09:35 PM
Comments
Happy Birthday!! You sound like you're in a good place mentally.
Posted by: Marcia at April 4, 2006 12:26 AM
That is a fabulous present to yourself. Happy boitday!
Posted by: Krista Kennedy at April 4, 2006 09:44 AM
I hope you have the happiest birthday that you can possibly have, in Syracuse.
Enjoy your day!
Posted by: Tamika at April 4, 2006 12:42 PM
Happy belated birthday!
Posted by: senioritis at April 9, 2006 08:52 AM