Happy 25th

So, today is the big day.  I am 25.  Unlike most birthdays, today I woke up feeling different.  I am not sure yet what different means, but just different. At 21 (the last big birthday) I had all kinds of ideas about where I was going to be at 25.  I was going to be married, have a couple of kids, maybe still be working at the Casino... I was right about so little and wrong about so much.

I did get married, but not to the person I had thought at 21.  I did have a couple of kids, one of my own and several foster children. I never knew that having children of my own was going to be an uphill fight.  I left the casino and never looked back lol and am now a stay at home mom, fosterparent, and student.  Who knew?

I think the funny thing about birthdays is that many of us use to to look back on the shoulda, coulda, woulda.  Is there some profound beckoning from the universe to put yourself down that happens to only fall on your day of birth? Is it suppose to create some "Hey as if aging isn't bad enough, let's recap all the things you've failed to accomplish," guilt? It must because every year on my birthday I stop and think man, I should have been done with this by now.  I get to questioning if I hadn't done this I could've doen that.  You follow me?

It is today on my birthday that I think that I am fed up with it.  Instead of what haven't I done or accomplished I made a list of things that I did do.  Here it goes.

1)I got married.  I didn't just get married, I married my best friend.  Yes, there are days I want to kill him and he wants to kill me, but at the end of the night we love each other. Our idea of marriage is old fashioned and we firmly believe that we can work through anything and that Divorce is never an option.  It makes murder seem plausible (just kidding honey), but really it is one of the healthiest relationships I've ever had with anyone, inclduing family.  That's how it should be.

2) I became a mom. Now this one is a doosey! I was told that I would never have children of my own. And for two years, that was the case. Nick and I had kind of come to terms with it and decided to keep trying while concurrently applying to become licensed foster parents in hopes of adoption. We went through the fertility treatments and the fostercare interviews and homestudy.  On Oct. 15 we became fosterparents and on oct. 16th we had our first fosterkids. I was a mom.  I know that that sounds so cheesy, but it was just like if we had brought home a baby of our own.  Here were these little boys who didn't know us from adam and stil fully trusted us to take care of them.  I remember looking at Nick and thinking, here we go. It was hard, it was scary, but in the end...it was ok.  It was very similar to when we brought home our son.  We had never had one that little and had no idea what we were suppose to do. At some point, instinct just takes over and you find yourself doing things you wouldn't have guessed that you knew how to do.  On both days my world shifted a little.

3) I moved away from home. This one is incredibly odd to me because it was never on my list of things to do. I never had any desire to move away from small town life. I loved where I was at.  I didn't always like the people, but I loved being with my family and living in a little town.  I was afraid of the big city.  Well, Nick enlisted after we got married and changed all that. A week shy of Christmas, we packed everything we owned and drove to Ft. Carson Colorado.  It was one of the most adventerous and scary things I have ever done.  I can honestly say now, that it is one of the best thigns I have ever done.  It has motivated me to learn not just how to live on my own, but also how to appreciate smalltown life without dealing with the smalltown drama. I've learned who my real friends are and how to make new ones. It had pushed me to grow as a person and to depend more on my husband.

4)I went back to school. I never finished college. I have sat here for several years now regretting that.  Feeling guilty as I watched many of my friends from high school move on with a degree and a promising career. I would kick myself for ever dropping out. I am currently schedualed to finish my technical training in March.  I didn't go back to a university, but I did choose a vocation and started training. That may not seem like a lot to some, but for me it was huge. I am learnign a lot and it gives me hope to eventually go back and finish my degree someday.

Now I know that this seems like an awful short list, I assure you had I written the other list it would have been much longer, but these are the four I am the most proud of.  These are the four that in the last 4 years have completely marked me as the person that I am and put me one step closer to being the person I want to be.