What really makes up a decade?
Yes, I know it's ten years. 3650 or so days. 87,600 hours. 5,256,000 minutes. But really, it is so much more than just time.
When I started this decade, I was a young bride, happily in love. Still in the honeymoon stage, I just knew the world was ours to conquer. I was certain that every plan I had ever made for my life was going to fall into place. Certain. If Ebenezer's Ghost of Christmas Future had visited me, I would be sure he had the wrong house. The wrong April.
Because, if you asked me at the wise old age of 20 where I would be at 30, this would be my answer:
I'll be living happily in Florence with my dear husband and our four, yes four, children. Each red head child would carry a name that either began with "S" or "K". My beautiful children would be spaced just perfectly at the ages of 8, 6, 4, and 2. My husband, he will be working still with Atmos. He will be the loving father I always knew he would be. I would be the happy mother at home chasing my two youngest children while also keeping an immaculate house, helping with homework, cooking a home made meal, and maintaining an incredible figure for a mother of four. Our families would be present in our lives, and our children would be so blessed because their grandparents lived just a few short miles from our home. We will be happily attending church at Cleary, and our lives would be just abundant.
Of course, those were my best laid plans. Those were the certainties I waited for. The things I thought we deserved. If you know my family, you know that my best laid plans haven't happened quite how I thought.
As I look back over the last ten years, I realize my plans were not too much to ask for. I see that my life would have been great if it had worked out the way I planned. But mostly what I see is that my planned out life was missing one major thing.
FAITH.
It's easy to see that things are going to be okay when they have always been okay. It's easy to be happy and joyful when your life has always been comfortable. When things are new, or hard, or heartbreaking, you find out who you really are deep down. There are many ugly things in me that have been purged because of the way our life has worked out. There are many things that still need work though. I've found joy in things that I would have never thought possible if my cookie cutter life would have worked out. I've met incredible people and made precious memories.
The last ten years have been a mix of joy, heartache, change, maturing, forgiving, saying goodbye, saying hello, and all sorts of things. Although my plan didn't quite work out the way I hoped I am certtain of this the last ten years have made me a better wife, a better mother, a better daughter, and a better friend.
As I enjoy my last day in my 20's, I have decided that 30 isn't going to be so bad! Maybe I'll end up with those four kids, or that hot body, I guess we will have to wait and see!
