It’s Graduation Time! There’s been a great series on CBC this week with personalities talking about their high school graduation and what they would think of where they are now. It got me thinking.
My grade thirteen graduation – well the prom – was a riot. I went with my friend Andrew, who promptly tried to set me up with the limo driver. I wore a yellow, floral Laura Ashley dress. Let’s review that – it was yellow and it was floral. Enough said. I remember having fun that night, flirting with an ex, dancing and drinking but staying in check – which was more than I could say for other high school formals before that for me.
When I think back of what I thought my life would be after graduation, it probably looked like this.
Meet a perfect guy at university. Get married a year later. Pop out three or four kids and stay at home and raise them. Hang out with my mom every Sunday. Take up golf. Drive a stations wagon. Be super active at my kids school and spend my day taking them to programs and lessons while my husband slaved at the office. We’d have dinner together a couple times a week – sex on Sundays maybe? It was always what I thought I wanted.
I met that guy after university. He’s married with a couple kids now…and probably having sex on Sundays.
Oh. My. God. Who was that person? And don’t get me wrong here – there is absolutely nothing wrong with that dream. But I’m not sure whose it was. I’m not sure who that girl was really.
Lets review.
a. Perfect guy at university? Well, I met lots of guys at university. Generally for a few hours at last call.
b. Get married a year later. I got engaged maybe ten years later? Paid for my own ring. Called it off.
c. Pop out three or four kids and stay home and raise them. I love my one guy. I bow down with deep and total respect to you stay-at-home moms and dads. I admire you. I would be a permanent resident of the Betty Ford Centre if I had to do it though. It’s not for me.
d. Hang with my mom every Sunday. F(&k you cancer.
e. Take up golf. Drive a station wagon. Golf? Who has time? I currently putt with a Dora putter and aim for a pink palace on my fake grass front lawn. And I drive a hatchback – which I looove.
f. Be super active…programs…slaving husband…. Okay. I’m doing a bottle drive at Will’s school and joined the Board at his daycare. Can this offset the fact that I selfishly have him in ZERO programs? God the rushing. Can’t take it. Husband. Well you know the deal there.
g. Sex on Sundays? Currently, that’s called Fifty Shades of Grey and a bottle of Malbec.
Where am I at? Single mom of awesome kid. Decently cool job. Writer on the side. I hang out with my Dad on Sundays (thankfully!). I have traveled to awesome places. I climbed a mountain with a group of strangers. I’m surrounded by a web of people who fill in for the missing husband (except the sex on Sundays part). I’m content. Happy.
Sometimes dreams come true by not coming true. Catch my drift?
Where did you think YOUR life would be after high school? Are you there??
**oh and the picture? Grade nine. Perhaps instead of dreaming of white picket fences, I should have been contemplating how to get a date with a boy haircut, no boobs AND a pucka shell necklace??*
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Pretty much where I thought I’d be/ I wanted to be (the huz, the kids, the SAHM-thing)
But also where I never thought I’d be /I wanted to be (the autism thing)
Love this – life always turns out better than we planned…even the crappy parts have a way of working out (I’m talking to you, prom date…)
Wow! Is this an ECI site?!? Hi Katherine!
It’s so hard, these dreams we have! I pursued what I thought was my dream with drive and purpose, but wound up looking for the wrong things. Never realized until too late that the husband, 2 kids, PTA dream is a house of cards without the foundation of a solid relationship. But since regret is pointless at this point, I prefer to count my blessings instead: 2 great kids, a job I love, wonderful friends and community…
Too funny!! Hi Andrew. Well, hopefully you’re still playing the clarinet, at least?!?!
OMG!! Scotty resembles you in that photo!!!! love it….thanks for posting…all my dreams were shattered too but I wouldn’t change my life for the world although there are some days I should be in the Betty Ford!!
OMG. Dying. Meet my prom date….:)
Actually, all has gone according to expectation.
Half baked I biked half way around the world and then returned to my homeland to stumble through an endless number of soul crushing gigs. With the thirties creeping up I quickly fell in love and married a girl of loose morals who tricked me into moving to Europe under the promise of sexual favours. After ten years the marriage ended ab’ruplty, as planned. Settled down on a coast far from family and friends where I now spend as much time as possible on a local beach collecting shells and splashing in the waves. So, no surprises here.
I still think that limo driver was a catch.
So, so, so with you on the Sundays with Mom, Sara. F(&k cancer, indeed.