We are. A 25-year-old's reflection.

So.  I've officially been 25 years old for almost two days now.  It's a milestone.  Quarter of a century.  Halfway to fifty.  However you think of it, I can officially rent a car all by myself and my car insurance will go down.  That's pretty big.  When I was a young girl, I always imagined that I'd be married around 22 or 23 (I got married at 22.5 years old) with at least one baby (or maybe on the way) by 25.  Well, I can officially announce that I do not have a child, nor am I expecting one in the near future.  So one out of two ain't bad.

I'm on my way to a degree, which I wasn't sure I'd ever do.  I was going to be famous.  And really, I was still going to be famous up until I was 22 when I realized that my dreams and goals had changed.  I wanted a different life.  So I went to school.  It was weird to be the 23-year-old freshman with a bunch of 18-year-old girls and guys.  Some guys were 21 because they'd just gotten back from their missions, but still....I felt so old!  And I was only 23!  But it's okay.  I've really enjoyed it.  In many ways, I think it was good for me to come back to school five years after I'd graduated.  I was ready for it.  I wasn't sick of school.  I wasn't itching to be done.  I wasn't confused about my life plan or trying to live on my own for the first time.  I was older and had a completely different outlook.  I was excited.  I loved learning.  It helped that I was married and didn't have to worry about dating anyone new or going to social gatherings (it's really hard for me to say no to those).  I worked really hard.  And I've gotten straight A's since I've been here.  Five semesters.  For a girl who gave up on her senior year and barely graduated (which was just stupid because I was in Honors and AP classes all four years of high school), that's really good.  I'm proud of myself.  Proud that I've been able to buckle down, concentrate, show up to class, do the work, study for the tests, and do well.

Funny how that works.

I've studied harder than I ever have in my life...especially this last semester...which was killer!  But how much more satisfied was I to see all of those A's??  I was shocked.  In tears!  I aced my finals after studying for HOURS!  And gosh, that semester was hard for more than just the hard classes.  I had an awful run-in with my boss (seriously...horrible), quit my job as an apartment manager, found a new place for us to live, moved, got my old job on campus back, fell behind in school, and caught back up....ALL without my husband!!  He was gone the whole semester on his internship!  Well, he did come back the weekend we moved, but he had a bum knee and was recovering from having his appendix removed.

As I think back on these 25 years, I think this last semester is the perfect culmination of my life so far.  I've struggled, like everyone has really.  I've been down.  I've been up.  I've had support from family.  I've had friends that have lifted me up.  I've worked hard to get here.  I don't have all the answers and I make a lot of mistakes, but I think I'm doing an ok job.  I'm a much better person now than I was five years ago.  I'm not that little innocent girl that I was ten years ago.  I'm not that little girl who feels like she has to make up lies to get people to like or accept her that I was fifteen years ago.  And I'm not a five-year-old.  Ok, I tried but couldn't think of anything neat to say.  I don't really remember me as a five-year-old....except that my best friend, Justine, was probably the coolest girl ever to me...so cool that I wanted to cut my hair off like she did.  When I look at pictures of that time, I see a happy girl.  I hope that I can become most like that girl, if I had to judge from pictures.  After all, didn't Christ say to become as little children to enter the kingdom of Heaven?

So, here's my little 25-year-old speck of wisdom: Life is a journey.  It takes us to many different places, and at some point, we are able to take our lives where we want them to go.  We are able to make our own decisions and decide our own destiny.  We decide what is important to us, we make it a priority, and we go where we want with it.  Along the way, things happen that maybe we didn't expect, but we still have control.  We still call the shots in our lives.  We decide how to react to each situation.  We decide how to handle it.  We decide who we want to be.  And in the end, "we are what we believe we are."  (C.S. Lewis)

(This entry was actually supposed to be about planning a weekly menu, if you can believe it.)