BRAVERY 52 | List 38
LIST 38 | List the things you have done in your life that you once couldn't imagine you would ever do, achieve, or experience.
There have been quite a number of things I never thought I’d ever do - and a number of things I was sure I was going to do, achieve, or experience that never happened. Sometimes it was due to timing, choice, and certainly circumstance for everything I said “yes” to over the years. We plan and god laughs is the truth.
One example? I always knew I’d have kids but had very little interest in getting married. The pressure to conform and find a husband was overwhelming. The weekly calls started when I turned 26 and continued until I got married at 30. I woke the morning of my wedding knowing it was the absolute wrong thing to do, confirmed by a breakfast I had with my soon-to-be mother- and sister-in-law who begged me to call it off. I did not. That’s a whole other story.
There was a whole slew of choices made in that four-year span that brought me to that point. The big ones include:
I was never going to live in Canada again but my experience in Buffalo was such that I did not know of one - not one - man who was faithful to his partner. If I was going to get married, I needed to find a better pool so I took a transfer and moved to Calgary, Alberta.
I was never going to work for another small-man tyrant after my experience with Mark Holt at IntersaveUSA only to work for much worse. It’s kind of funny that I consistently worked for the most notoriously terrible bosses in my grocery industry experience.
I was never going to own a house and be tied down to that epitome of settling and domesticity. I was always going to rent so that I could travel and not worry about all of the maintenance and drudgery that comes with homeownership.
I am a true believer that you can have it all - just not all at one time, especially as a woman (that’s not a complaint, it is a simple reality). Every situation requires decisions that lead to more decisions - small adjustments that lead to big changes. It’s no surprise that many of us find ourselves very far away from our original plan for our lives.
When my son, Caden, was in grade 7, I met the mum of one of his friends, a woman I had known when I was in grade school. She remarked that she was impressed that I had gotten exactly what I had wanted: no husband and a bunch of kids with my last name. So, I suppose, sometimes things you could never imagine are actualized dreams from another time and place.
Going forward, my plan is to have no plan, as in no goal. I will say yes only to the opportunities that resonate with me. I’ll allow surprise and delight to be how I spend my days. My life right now is something I could never have imagined. I live in a big yellow house, 3+ hours away from the life I’ve known for almost 25 years, in a town with one traffic light. Everything in that sentence is a surprise.