Curveballs

It's funny the plans you make for yourself and then your life gets in the way. That's what I've been thinking about today. It all started at a meeting the other night. I vowed once again that I will not end up "... in a tent in Kenya." But I've learned to make that vow with my fingers crossed, because those are the vows that get me in trouble.

I remember all the plans I had to be "when I grow up." At some point I wanted to "be" a nurse, because my favorite "auntie" was a nurse. I thought that the most wonderful people grew up to be nurses. That was when I was about 5 and 6. Then when I was in junior high I decided to be an oceanographer. But I think this had more to do with my infatuation with Cape Cod and the fact that I would be able to work out of Woods Hole, than any true desire to be an oceanographer. I'm sure I cycled through a couple of other things. At some point my mother insisted I take a typing class, which I indignantly resisted, "because I'm NEVER going to be a SECRETARY." Words I ate in humility several years later. Humility causes indigestion I discovered. Or maybe it relieves it. When I went to college I wanted to be a physical anthropologist and discover the "missing link." But I took my college's only physical anthropology class my first semester freshman year, so .... that was sort of out. Next I wanted to go into International Law, but by the time I graduated with my bachelor's degree all I really knew was that I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

So I started working. The other thing I knew was that I had no plans to be a wife and mother. That was never on my radar screen.

At ...

All.

Ever.

I was going to have a career in foreign affairs. That had no place for a family. A husband ... perhaps. But no children. Besides ... I'm not the maternal type.

But I never settled in a job and I did find a husband. Then I went to graduate school. And I did find a faith and a church. It's funny the curveballs that you get thrown when you're not looking. Suddenly you look around and wonder who's life this is. I mean I know this **is** my life ... it's just not the life I had planned. I like this life, I just wonder where this life came from. I wonder how it happened when I wasn't looking. It sometimes feels like that line from "Once In A Lifetime" by Talking Heads: "That's not my beautiful house ... that's not my beautiful wife"

How did I, the daughter of a public school teacher and the chairman of the schoolboard and holder of 40+ graduate credits in Secondary Education, end up homeschooling my children? How did I get here? Does anyone else wonder this? I know it's the result of thousands of small and large decisions made, some on the fly and some as the result of hours of prayer and pondering. But it feels rather capricious.

And ... I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But I've narrowed it down a little. I'm considering seminary. Or quilting.