14 Years Ago [31.Aug.11]

14 years ago today I went to bed expecting a very different future. If you'd told the me of 14 years ago what this future looked like, I wouldn't have believed you. And I'd have married him 14 years ago tomorrow anyway. That's what love does, it makes you believe you can beat even the foretelling of a different life.

I don't regret that day 14 years ago, I regret only the things I don't do, not the things I do, and I can never regret something that gave me so many wonderful memories, even if it also has it's share of bad ones. But I do mourn the loss of those naive dreams and am still often really confused by how life turned out. Instead of being married, a mother, a home-owner, I am single, childless and renting. I'm now repeatedly starting out again in a way I never did before, without a partner by my side, and with more emotional baggage and mental scarring than I'd ever conceived would happen to me. I've discovered I'm simultaneously stronger, and weaker, than I could ever have known all those years ago.

Weddings have been on my mind this week. Not surprising really given the fact that the other man I let myself love in this life got married last weekend. And of course I haven't been able to stop myself looking at the pictures of happiness our mutual friends have posted on facebook. Just 8 months ago, as the year turned from 2010 into 2011, I couldn't have conceived that 8 months hence the future would look like this.

14 years ago. 8 months ago. The world looked so different. So, today, I feel down, I feel overwhelmed and lonely and alone. But maybe in 6 months, or a year, or another 14 years, my future will surprise me again, but in a good way. Maybe there is reason to hope for something better, just around the next corner. Because it's so obvious that what you think the future looks like, when you get there, it looks nothing like what you thought it would.