You know when your whole 10-year plan gets thwarted? I was re-reading my journal the other day and actually that has happened so many times I should just be expecting it at this point, but I never do. I always lay everything out perfectly...so I know exactly what year I'll be doing what in my career, how old I'll be, when I'm going to get married (or now, when we're going to have a baby in all that ridiculousness) etc...etc...
Have any of you ever seen the movie Lucky 7? It's with the girl from Father of the Bride and Dr. McDreamy (can't think of his name either right now) from Grey's Anatomy. Anyways, the girl's mom dies when she is 7 years old but before she does she writes out a whole timeline for her little girl that includes when she'll go to summer camp, when she'll run for class president, what she'll major in during college and study in grad school, and how many boyfriends she'll have over the years, including when she'll get married. The movie fasts forward to the girl's life with boyfriend #6. So far, the timeline has been right--predicting all of these wonderful things she'll do in her life, including going to law school, and touring Europe. But then she falls hard for boyfriend #6, when she was supposed to fall hard for boyfriend #7, and suddenly her life plan is wrong and she starts second guessing herself and her timeline.
When I was in seminary at age 15 I remember our teacher asking us to think hard about what we would be doing in 5 years. So I was thinking, okay, 20 years old...I better be sleeping at this hour! And I'll probably be in college, hopefully at the airforce academy doing an engineering degree. Clearly I was deranged about my career plans at that point, because what person in their right mind would want to do an engineering degree at the air force academy? Thankfully my dad talked me out of that one (or at least, that's how I remember it). Then she asked us to imagine where we'd be in 10 years and I was thinking, hmmm. 25 years old. That's tough. Maybe I'll be getting married then. Hopefully I'll be working for NASA as an astronaut. I guess my childhood astronaut dream hadn't quite fizzled at age 15. Fast forward a few years and I thought I was going to marry my high school boyfriend when he got home from his mission and major in math education. By age 18 I decided to go to medical school and basically not date at BYU at all because I didn't want to get married young. One more year under my belt and I was reluctantly saying yes to the most persistent (not to mention attractive) boy in our apartment complex--in the infamous Peaches. I thought I was going to marry him too and when he died in a climbing accident I about died from heartbreak. Fast forward to junior year and Peaches' best friend, Boyd, becomes my best friend, and I realize that this was how it was supposed to be all along. It was fast...a year and half later we were married, but he was leaving for grad school and I knew this was my chance, take it or leave it. For once in my life I followed my gut and threw my 10 year plan out the window and got married at 21 when everyone thought I was crazy and way too young. But that turned out to be the best decision I ever made.
So now I am 25 and maybe I'm done with 10 year plans. I try to figure out how we're going to fit in 4 kids in the next 10 child-bearing years of my life along with my residency and Boyd's plans that probably include more school down the line. I think I've decided that I don't know who buys nice homes anymore because I cannot ever imagine a time when we'll be able to afford such a luxury and maybe our kids will have to be okay with apartment living. If we can even have kids! You know how those things haunt you? Things like infertility and never getting out of school and never having a real job? Sometimes I just want to be a real adult. I mean, there are physicians that I work with who are still asking me what I want to be when I grow up, and patients wanting to know when they're going to see the "real" doctor. And I know what they mean, but it's still depressing when you realize you have 1 1/2 years more school and then 3-5 years of residency where you're still not a "real" doctor. And each year in our ever-changing ward we get younger and younger. Because, we must be 22, right? Maybe 23? Newlyweds obviously, and are we doing our undergrads at the UofA? Flattering as that is...
I'm not sure where my timeline goes now. I've reached 25 and it ends. I often wish that someone could just give me the briefest glimpse of my life in 10 years so I can see that we will have kids, and maybe a house, and that light will stream into in the nursery with a rocking chair just like it always does in my reoccuring dream.
