High school graduation. Still one of my favorite memories. I loved my senior year of high school. Sure there were a lot of not so lovely things at the times. But overall, it was a great year - spent enjoying every last drop of New Bern and the friends I had in New Bern, while also looking forward to all the exciting things yet to come.
Senior Semi-Formal circa 2007
By nature, I'm a planner and a dreamer and I love thinking about and planning out big life events. My senior year of high school was like a big stepping stone. The starting line to all those big events.
For the most part, my life has turned out exactly my 18-year-old self thought it would. Yet at the same time things have turned out completely different than I could have ever imagined.
I thought...I would be at NCSU, studying Elementary Education.
I thought...I would be in a sorority.
I thought...I would be single and would have spent way too much time partying with all my new friends/boyfriends.
In reality...I was at NCSU, majoring in Elementary Education but taking ridiculously unnecessary classes. What is a future Kindergarten teacher going to do with Zoology, Statistics, and Chemistry?
In reality...I did not rush a sorority, but instead accepted a teaching scholarship, becoming a North Carolina Teaching Fellow. Still a choice I sometimes question, but am ultimately thankful I made.
In reality...I was dating Robbie, again. And falling more in love with him each day, again. Apart from my soulmate of a roommate (seriously where had this girl been all my life?) I had made a handful of new friends but had realized that making new true friends was trickier than I thought. I was also learning that girl drama didn't end in high school, unfortunately.
Oh yea, and in reality I had really long hair and was always really tan. Ah, the good ole days.
I thought...I would be out of college and teaching Kindergarten in Raleigh - loving it.
I thought...I would be engaged, or newly married - loving it.
** Clearly I wasn't as detailed of a planner as I would have thought. **
In reality...I was out of college and back in New Bern. I had found a teaching job in Cove City (which had previously only been a highway exit to me). I was teaching Third Grade and was far from loving it.
In reality...I was married, to Robbie. And definitely loving that.
In reality...we were renting a house with two puppy dogs, who I loved way more than I could have ever imagined.
In reality...I was far away from the friends I had made in college, which made me sad. Location wise, I was close to the friends I had in high school, which was nice but was creating a weird limbo between my high school self and my grown up self.
I thought...I would still be teaching.
I thought...I would own a house back in New Bern with my hunk-a-burnin love husband.
I thought...I would have had one kid with maybe another on the way.
In reality...I haven't been out of high school for ten years so I can't technically complete this part yet.
I have been out of high school for almost 7 years (gah) and I'm well on my way to accomplishing most of those ten year goals. The big umbrella picture of my life as panned out exactly the way I hoped it would. College, teaching career, husband, etc.
it's the little tiny details, the things that make our lives unique and special and memorable that we don't plan for. That we couldn't possibly plan for. When I was 18 I never thought Robbie would be my husband. At the time of high school graduation, we weren't even on speaking terms. I never thought I would be commuting 30 minutes one way to teach at a low-performing school in the middle of nowhere. I never thought it would test me as much as it has. And I never thought I could love it the way I do.
I never thought I would spend my fall Saturdays tailgating at ECU football games. I never thought I wouldn't even speak to my high school best friend anymore. I never thought I would buy and remodel a house five minutes away from my childhood house. I never thought my husband would be laid off two years into our marriage, leaving us to live on my salary alone. I never thought I'd find the "grown-up" friendships I have found in the past few years. I never thought I'd want to wait to have babies. I never thought I'd understand what it was like to be madly in love everyday with someone.
Living in the same small town that I grew up in is a strange thing. Sometimes I look around and things are exactly the same. Things are exactly how I would have always expected them to be. And then other times I look around and everything is different, new, exciting, and terrifying.
Here's to the next ten, er seven, years!
Linking up with Bon.
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