I’m about 1 month away from my 43rd birthday. I have recently realized that is still young. That’s great news to me because I’m still trying to figure out my life and what I’m going to be when I grow up. It has led me down the thought process of other cliche things I know now like:
Time passes anyway. Last week I read a story about a woman who went to law school at age 47. While she did already have a Bachelor’s degree, she was running her own law firm within 10 years. The main piece of advice she gave was that time passes wether you are doing nothing or pursuing your dreams. She would have (hopefully) turned 57 wether she went back to school or not. Typically I find facebook comments to be an obnoxious brain rot, but the amount of people chiming in saying they also went to school, some for the first time, in their 40’s was really cool to read. Dare I say inspirational.
You’re gonna miss this. A summer project has been updating the framed photos around the house. Step one was finding photos to print, a habit I am not good at. It has resulted in me going down the rabbit hole of the past 16 years with my little family. Summer breaks used to be so hard with toddlers and preschoolers. Heck- being on a strict nap and feeding schedule with infants was hard. Florida is hot y’all and being inside with anyone under the age of 4 all day long will make you crazy. The light in the tunnel appeared after swim lessons. I had 3 kids under 3 1/2 at one point and hung on for dear life. But what I wouldn’t give to go back and visit. Life is easier in those areas now, new challenges have presented themselves like teaching my girls to drive, but I can say with real nostalgia that I miss those wild west days.
Enjoy the view from where you’re at. The whole point of updating the photos was to be in the present. Now that I am very aware that time is a thief I really do my best to look around and take it all in. It dawned on me that I am living in a small window of time that we are still able to have our parents and our kids at the same dinner table. Last month I decided we are having Thanksgiving every month. Yes, it sounds crazy and I got side eye but why do we limit family time, casseroles and a day to celebrate thankfulness to one day out of the year? So on the last Thursday of June I pulled out all the dusty Thanksgiving decor and decorated the dining room. The kids helped with the mashed potato prep, set the table, and asked all day when was it time to eat. This question started on Wednesday to which I replied “you’ll eat at Thanksgiving”. Traditions are traditions. It was nice eating at a normal dinner hour with the summer sunlight too! So this week is our July Thanksgiving and the grandparents are coming too. Hopefully by the time the real day comes around in November we’ll have a good casserole we had months of practice with. PS-try finding a turkey in the non Thanksgiving months, not as easy as you’d think!
social media is a highlight reel and let’s be real, it’s fake. Have I always known this? I think so. Have I been guilty of only posting the good times? yes. Now that I have teenagers who are by fault of their generation, social media junkies, this became a lesson I needed to teach them which in turn opened my own eyes to how bad it’s gotten! I mean, I could handle the filters but AI has taken it to a new level! Comparison is the devil. It’s easy to get caught up in the group photos, the vacations, the “16 years with my forever wedding date” anniversary posts… you know the ones. The same posts don’t have the outtakes of the photos that were bad of the crying kids not wanting to be in the photo, the messy kitchens at the end of each day that nobody wants to clean, the credit card statements from the vacations and the kid’s braces, the mascara dried to your cheeks from the tears of being overwhelmed, you know- the real stuff. The real stuff comes from the “how is everything going” text messages. Not a like or a comment for the world to see. HOWEVER, I do love seeing my friend’s and families accomplishments and family photos, LOVE. So if you’re reading this, don’t stop doing that and don’t overthink this. Just keep it real and for the love of reality, don’t use an AI avatar. For the record this blog is all me, I don’t use AI to even check for spelling errors, to which you’ve probably noticed 😬
Love is a verb. Mark and I have been married for 16 years now. Together for 18. My parents were only together for 17 years and although I do wish things didn’t go down the way they did between them, I get it now. Marriage is work and love is a verb. I am a huge Walker Hayes fan. One of his songs is about his marriage “I still do”. The hook goes like this: “We said for better we said for worse
But we didn’t know what worse would mean
We said for richer we said for poorer
But we didn’t know how broke we’d be
Just a couple of kids just sayin’
What the preacher told us to
Didn’t know what we were doin’
Man but baby I still do”.
I still do, because I still love him probably more than I did when I met him when I was only 24. We have made a big life together and probably have to forgive more than we can forget- another Walker Hayes song. He’s also one of my few subscribers on my blog so shout out to my number one fan!
So if I only knew then what I know now… what would I be doing? Would I have enjoyed every single moment with the babies? Would I have gone back to school and be in some 6 figure earning career? Would I even be in the life I’m in right now? I have no idea. I don’t know if I would want to know either. Would you? One day soon I’m sure there is going to be an AI crystal ball that people will line up for like the newest iPhone. Like the newest iPhone, I will likely have to wait a few years and get the older version but until that day comes I will do my best to use what I have learned and remind myself to enjoy the current view.
Here is the inspirational People Magazine article https://people.com/woman-who-started-law-school-at-47-now-leads-her-own-all-women-firm-exclusive-12020533
Amy Annonymous 
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