2009, Here I Come!

As most of you know, I am such a planner and thus tend to always be looking towards the future rather than enjoying the present. This is something I am trying very hard to stop doing. It’s even harder at this time of year when everyone starts talking about goals and resolutions and list making; I want to sit at my computer for hours composing lists and making plans for 2009.

After all, I know it will be a big year for us. For starters, the Army Man will finally complete his last leg of training, and after almost 2 years of being in various schools, he’ll be back to actually doing Army things. He is likely to deploy at some point, so that’s always on my mind. Laura will start some sort of pre-K program and will turn 5 in October. That’s a full-fledged kid. I won’t have a baby anymore. That’s a lot to think about too. I’ll turn 30 (albeit not until the very end of the year, but still) which I’ve always held extremely high expectations for. The closer I get to that age, the more I worry that I’ve set myself up for disappointment. As a geeky teenager I was much like Jennifer Garner’s character in “13 Going On 30”-I was convinced by 30 I would be successful, glamorous, and confident. I find myself on the cusp and yet I feel none of those qualities apply to me. But before you start breaking out the tiny violins, please know that I am not looking for pity or compliments (although both are always welcome)!

The point is that even though 2009 has long been on my radar as a “must-be-great” year, I finally feel mature enough to know that it won’t be anything like what I had imagined, and yet it will be infinitely better than I could have ever hoped. It is so exciting to think about the future, imagine how things will be different or better. Yet how often do things actually come true exactly as we imagine? Not very often, at least in my case. But I still have wonderful memories of my life thus far, and each year has gotten progressively better. I often laugh, because as a kid I certainly thought that by age 30 I would have 3 or 4 kids and live in California near my parents, with a much older husband who was some sort of office professional. I never imagined that I would live in North Carolina, be married to the military, and have one darling daughter who seems like more work that five kids put together. It just goes to show that all the planning in the world doesn't make much of a difference when life actually starts happening.

2009 is shaping up to be a good year for me, despite what will probably be quite a few ups and downs. I look forward to what this year holds for me and my family. I’m excited to see how we handle everything and the memories we make. But most of all, I look forward to enjoying 2009 as it occurs, not how I hope it will or how I plan for it to occur.