Just Rambling On

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

--"Changes" by David Bowie

Change is inevitable. Times change, people change, relationships change, even I change. The things that once were important to me are no longer of any consequence in my life. Going out, drinking, smoking, staying up late, sleeping in every weekend – they all once seemed so important to me. But at the end of the day, I was empty and lost, needing so much more.

When I found Jerry, things started to change. I became a bit of a home body and my priorities switched from going out, having fun and drinking (an attempt to ease my unhappiness, no doubt) to spending time with the man I love.

Then came marriage and a child, and the majority of my remaining vices were replaced by being a mom, setting a good example, and doing my best to care for a child when I had no idea how to do so.

I'm getting older, we all do. While I feel I'm far from the "old" tag (I'm almost 36, not almost 76!), I think I've finally made it to the grown up phase of my life. My family is my priority, and even that is changing to some degree. No longer content to just have a home, I want to have a clean home and a nice home, and that's a losing battle for a number of reasons – the biggest being that I don't have the time.

Where I used to long to be surrounded by dogs when I had trouble getting pregnant and staying pregnant, I find that the 3 we have are more of a nuisance at times. Don't get me wrong, I love them all dearly and wish nothing bad on any of them, but they irritate me, and I wish that we only had one. The tumbleweeds composed of dog hair & dander that blow across the kitchen an hour after I sweep and mop seem to cement the notion that one would be enough.

The weekends that I used to look forward to have become weekends that I don't enjoy. They aren't filled with rest and fun. There's housework, laundry, grocery shopping that all need to be done, as well as the little things that fall through the cracks during the week because I'm too tired to get to them.

Becoming a mom has filled my life with both happiness I never knew existed and an endless parade of must-do's and responsibilities.

Friendships have fallen by the wayside, because all I have the energy to do is sit on the couch after Josh goes to bed and hang out on MySpace. If I didn't have MySpace, I'd probably be in bed by 9:00 every night.

And all in all, I've managed to find the happiness in this mess called "life". I can't imagine a day without having to be a mom. No outfit would be complete without the dog hair, and besides the house would feel empty and quiet without them.

I certainly don't regret one bit of my life, other than the fact that I spent so much time and money smoking. But that has changed too. (I didn't say the changes were bad.)

I think the hardest part for me is not being able to do it all exactly the way I want to, or had planned to for that matter. I dislike not having control over so many aspects of my life, but at the same time, what a boring life it would be if everything went exactly as planned with no surprises.

Outside of MySpace and my close circle of friends, I'm a fairly private person. (What?!?!?) No, really, it's true! I don't share every piece of my life with everyone who crosses my path.

People ask me if I'm thinking of another baby. Sure I am. Can't have one, but I think about it all the time. It was a goal for the majority of my teenage years and early adulthood. Married, 2 kids – (hopefully a boy and a girl), stay at home mom, rich husband, custom built home. But, that pesky thing called life gets in the way.

My point in all of this? People need to stop plotting and planning and having their happiness rely on things going just the way they hope and plan. You have to find the happiness in how your life plays out, because things rarely go as planned. My happiness? I'm loved by 3 wonderful men: my husband, my son and my step son. And they love me in spite of the bad things, my crankiness and my neuroticism about certain issues. Are there things I'd like to change about my relationship with each of them? Obviously. BUT, if those things change, maybe we all wouldn't be as happy as we are now. Maybe we'd become one of those families that can't wait for the others to be gone so we could be happy. Maybe the life we've created would fall apart.

So what I'm saying is I'll take the way things are now over not having them at all or having them be everything I ever wanted them to be and wind up miserable and lonely.

Where do you find is your biggest source of happiness, even when things are going wrong?