My Life

My son got me to thinking about how when we are children, we dream about what we’ll be when we are adults. We all just know that our dreams will come true if we really want it to happen, too.

I dreamed of a loving husband, three children and a great job. I just knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would be a pediatric neurologist. I have epilepsy and my doctor helped me so much that I, in turn, wanted to be able do the same for children when I grew up. Now, I was not naïve. I knew that it would take a lot of hard work in school, and that I’d have to study hard in college and med school. Then, of course, there is the internship and tons of debt. By the time I was in junior high school, my vision of my future had evolved a bit. We had a project to do and we had to do extensive research on what we wanted to do. My final plan was that I would go to college, then med school followed by law school. My reasoning was that if I were a doctor I’d need a good attorney in case I got sued (it was in the 80s that these frivolous lawsuits started popping up every two seconds!). I reasoned that I would save a lot of money on attorneys by representing myself, if the need ever arose.

Alas, that is not the life I lead and it is not the life I would want. I have a loving husband and have two wonderful children (which is plenty for us!), but I work in accounting. I hated accounting in college, but somehow I’ve been doing this for the past eleven years and now I actually like it. My degree is not in accounting, so I plan to go back for that in a couple of years. For now, I need to just put my time in at the office then go home and enjoy my children! No time for classes right now. I just think it is funny how things happen and you can end up with a totally “normal” life and love it. You can also end up with a very “glamorous” life and be miserable.

This is not to say that my life is perfect, by any means. My husband and I went through some stuff earlier this year, but we were able to work through it. Our marriage is rock-solid and I pray that it stays that way for the rest of our lives. Getting to that point was not easy. I guess I just expected that if I loved someone and if he loved me just as much, then there would be no marital problems. I would never hurt the ones I love, so I wouldn’t get hurt either, right? Wrong. Sometimes our loved ones do hurt us (not physically!!) unintentionally. When that happens, you just have to work through it. If you love each other, really love each other, then you just keep trying and working at your marriage until it’s right again. That’s what we had to do. Now we are happier than ever.

Our children are the greatest blessings! Our son is such a cutie and he keeps us laughing. Even my co-workers come up to me to ask me if he’s said anything funny lately. He’s always coming up with one thing or another. Then there is our baby girl. She is a cutie and loves to laugh. She adores her big brother. We don’t get enough family time together, though. My husband and I work different schedules and so it is difficult to just spend a weekend doing normal “family” stuff. We try to do that as often as possible. Even though we don’t have as much time to do things together, we probably spend as much time together as most families that do have the time. I think a lot of families that have more “normal” schedules forget how precious that time is and they don’t take advantage of it. Not us, we try to make the best of our time with our family. I would love to have more time to spend with my family (all of my family—parents, in-laws, sister, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc.) but we are only given 365 days a year. How we spend that time is up to each of us.

So, I’m happy with my life just the way it is. I have a boring job (I'd rather not work outside of the home, but I have to) that pays pretty well. I am married to the love of my life. I have two wonderful children. My life couldn’t get much better.