I've never been career-oriented. It's biting me in the butt now, but as most kids do I had a variety of things I wanted to be once I hit that elusive "grown-up" stage. There was writer, vet, marine biologist (which I wrote off once I realized I'd probably have to live in somewhere like California or Florida, no thank you), teacher (check), violinist (this is one I still regret I didn't achieve), and more recently things that still cause me waves of shoulda-woulda-coulda like park ranger (seriously, this one will always haunt me), canon lawyer (potentially could still happen I suppose), something related to catechist. Who knows what I'll eventually land on, if anything, but the one thing through all these career "goals" that stayed the same - and possibly was part of the reason I never landed hard on one path - is that I've always, above all else, wanted to be a wife and a mother. Unfortunately, this is also the one thing that I really can't do anything about - there's no school to go study to become these things, though lots of girls do get their MRS degree at college. I must have missed a few of the required classes, I guess. So, it's hard when the one thing I've always wanted is the thing I have the least control over. Sure, I can work to make myself become the best version of myself, but improving myself doesn't magically make a man who wants to marry me appear in my life.
This makes the world a sometimes-painful place, and it results in lots of unexpected grief bombs - innocent comments by others, seeing certain things, various random events - I just never know when they're going to hit. Sometimes I can predict it (when I go out to places where I know there will be couples/families, when I'm sitting at Mass by myself, when I go to movies like Cinderella or, you know, any movie ever that includes an improbable love story as most of them do, on days that end in y, etc), and sometimes I'm always ready with my shield up (like every time I log onto facebook - doesn't mean I'm invincible there, but at least I'm already expecting it), but sometimes I'm just sitting there in the middle of Chrism Mass - where I'm sitting with my choir and thus am not alone an am not on guard - and get a sudden deep ache in my heart because I caught a whiff of the baptismal oil and wonder if I'll ever be able to smell that beautiful scent on my own baby's head after his/her baptism. For example.
Point is, life is hard, and pain comes unexpectedly, and sometimes there's just no way to prepare for it but to know that it could happen at any time in any situation interacting with any person - and at least in that you can prepare for the eventuality that it'll hit, and that you'll be fighting tears in most inconvenient times and places. In that, at least, there's a bit of peace and freedom.
I'm not sure if this is where I meant this to go. Happens to me all the time. But hey, just be aware - we're all walking around with our own crosses, and mine might seem insignificant to you, but the opposite is also true. God gives us each different strengths and abilities and therefore different crosses. And gosh darn it, sometimes life just sucks, because we live in a fallen world where things just aren't perfect and sometimes are far from it. But it's like that for all of us - even those who seem like they have it all together, like they're living the golden life, like nothing bad ever touches them. And the good news is, God exists. And he's pretty fantastic. Even when those grief bombs show up trying to blow us out of the water we're just barely treading. (When we're about to drown is when God can really show us what he's capable of doing for us. And boy, is he ever amazing.)
Also, in the midst of writing this all out, I came across a blog post that really...well, gets it. http://www.catholicdrinkie.com/growing-old-alone/
Anyway. Just some thoughts. God is good, and he has a plan, and his timing, and sometimes it really sucks, but in the end, it's all for good. And, man, I don't know how people get through this life without knowing Jesus. I definitely don't put enough into my relationship with him as I should, but he's still always there for me, and I don't know what I'd do without that.
