Tag … I’m It!
Good ole Alice threw the gauntlet, so to speak, and tagged me with a challenge to “blog about five things in my life that I never dreamed, when I was 25, would be in my life now”. Holy cow! That’s a lot of years and many inventions and events ago! But I love journaling challenges.
(Rubs hands together, wiggles fingers to get them ready and plunges in.)
I’ll tell you one thing … I should have expected it, but I didn’t think about it … that I would be in love with a 64 year old man with thinning white hair, a little bit of a belly, and wrinkles! What I find even more amazing is that after 41 years of being together I find him even better than the original model. And what is even crazier than that is that I find him just as sexy and good looking as when I thought he was Mr. Tall, Dark, & Handsome. So, that’s the number one thing … loving an old man!
Number two … hmmmmm … I’m sorry to seem to be copying Alice on this one, but I will lump two of hers into one of mine … Computers, instant messaging, and blogging. Wouldn’t I have loved this when we were just new parents and off on our way to Georgia with a brand new baby so Lynn could go to Officer’s Training in the army? I felt so far away from Mom and my sister and my friends … nobody to answer my questions on how to take care of a baby and nobody to oooo and ahhhh over him like they would have. Letter’s used to take the better part of a week to get back to Utah so a good turn around time was about ten days before they were answered. Long distance phone calls were expensive, and who could afford a telephone back then anyway?
When my last child got married and moved to Seattle right afterward, I expected to go through the most horrendous withdrawals a mother could have because up to that time my children were within a five hour drive in any direction. I didn’t disappoint myself about my expectation but it was softened sooooo much by instant messaging.
Now I am blogging and telling people things about myself I would never have thought possible. Admitting all kinds of flaws and still maintaining warm fuzzies about myself. Twenty-five years ago I worried more about what people thought of me … now I don’t because basically I’m a rather nice person so if they don’t like me I can’t help it much. Plus blogging has been such fun and I’ve made friends in places I haven’t even been to!
The third thing I would choose would be being “fluffed out” … or as they used to say “pleasingly plump”. Well I’m hear to tell you there is no pleasingly to plump if you are the plumpee. I was thinking the other day how I probably deserve my battle of the bulge because I was so unsympathetic to overweight people in my youth. I now realize that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder and there are many wonderful people of all sizes, shapes, and colors … and that none of those things have anything to do with their IQ’s or ability to perform.
Fourth would be that I almost have seventeen grandchildren … and that I am old enough to have them! Like Alice, I kind of expected to find a man who would sweep me off my feet and that we would marry and have little babies … and even that they would grow up and have spouses and babies of their own. What I had no way of knowing was how wonderful those babies of their own would be and how much I would love being their Grandma. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of each one of them and wonder how they are and what they are doing. Nothing pleases me more than an email or a phone call or a letter from one of them … or better yet a visit in person! They reciprocate all this love I have for them by adoring me and thinking I am wonderful and loving all the time. They don’t believe their parents when they tell them “you should have seen her twenty-five years ago”.
And last of all I hadn’t thought of the fact that as I aged, so would my parents and siblings … and aunts and uncles … or that their lives would actually end before mine. It’s good we don’t think of that too much but it is also important to make the most of each day and each opportunity we have to be with them. I am grateful for the happy memories and the pictures and journals they left and that personally I believe I will see them again some day.
Okay … so I’m not done … Sixth would be that I would write my first book when I was sixty years old. The reason this is qualifies for an entry is that twenty-five years ago I would have thought I’d written at least a dozen books by now.
So … as I read this over I think I didn’t give the answers that maybe the originator of this was looking for … like laser surgeries, pain free dentistry, my own carpet shampooer, a car that was actually paid for, … but it was my best shot. Now it is my turn to play “tag” and I choose Brett, Warren, Mark, Dave, and my sister, Ann, who doesn’t have a blog yet but I will gladly put her epistle here on mine. So since Ann doesn’t have a blog that you can actually go to yet I will also tag my daughter, http://whim.nordquist.org/ who is not quite thirty-one but that gives her enough time to go back twenty five years.
I never thought much of memes before this, but it’s fun to see the different twists each blogger puts on this question. It’ll be interesting to see what your daughter does with it when she would have five 25 years ago? Enjoyed this very much. Thanks for playing.
Okay Alice, since I didn’t do what my mom said and go back 25 years on my blog I will give you my quick list of what I would have said if I had gone back to when I was five years old.
1 – I would have never dreamed that I would be cleaning up after my family, let alone myself. I was sure I would have a house full of maids, cooks, drivers, and personal assistants.
2 – I was sure I would be a professional figure skater…that is not exactly answering the question, but I never dreamed that WOULDN’T be in my life. I still have never put on a pair of ice skates.
3 – I would have never dreamed I could live so far away from my parents and family. At five you just kind of assume you will always live by your mom and dad.
4 – Computers are way beyond what I could have imagined back then. All I knew was our little Atari 800 game machine with Mrs. Pacman and Maze Craze.
5 – I would have never dreamed I would be getting myself and my family up and WANTING to go to church without anybody even making me! Okay…so most times I am dragging myself out of bed and I mumble and grumble until I get there…and then I am happy to be there.
[...] to Grandma Henke, I get to share with you “blog about five things in my life that I never dreamed, when I was 25, [...]
25 years ago – doesn’t seem to be so long ago in my life. But as I though about it I realized that so much of the best parts of my life have been added in that amount of time. Our children were not yet married – so even though I realized that they all one day would be married – still I never imagined then how much I could love the companions they would each choose and marry. Like Edna, I too knew that ‘someday’ there would be grandchildren in my life, but how could I know then just how GRAND those children would be?
Another thing I ‘knew’ would most probably come to pass was that I would one day become an orphan. After dad died it seemed that we (family) ‘hung on’ to our mother even more tightly than before. I guess the realization of life and it’s passings became a reality to each of us. When our mom died last spring I remember thinking, “I am an orphan” – and even though I was 73 years young I felt so lost!
I never imagined that one day my husband would become rather quiet and timid and sort of dependant upon ME …. for that had always been my ‘role’ in our marriage. While I’m not happy about the change, I am grateful that I am able to ‘take a turn’ and be there for him as he has always been there for me. But still, I never would have imagined it. I don’t even want to imagine him not being here with me …. so I won’t go there.
Life is good …. even with all the things we perhaps could not have at one time imagined.
[...] this, but all well. I can’t think of anything else to write about so I’ll answer my mom’s challenge to write about 5 things I didn’t think would have happened in my life, but I’m changing [...]
I’ve loved reading these. It is really interesting to see what has happened in our lives as compared to what we expected would happen. It was a fun exercise. Thanks for responding.
Five things in my life that I never dreamed, when I was 25, would be in my life now.
At age 25 I wouldn’t have thought that I’d have 4 children by the age of 40. I got a late start and I’m glad I married a great younger gal in Whim. Kim and the kids are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
That I’d love to write. I didn’t enjoy writing in high school or college. But now I can’t stop writing on my blog or My Family websites. I need to figure out how to make a living writing.
That I’d have a job in the technology field. I thought for sure I’d be a marketer or a teacher or about anything else outside of technology. But when I moved to Seattle I realized I could make a nice living doing what I considered a hobby.
That my kids would beat me at nearly ever video game. I used to take pride in beating my friends. Now my 6 and 4 year old school me at any game.
That’s I’d love Jazz music. At 25 all I knew was classic rock.