Happy Surprises in Life

[AmeliaJane]

My 20-year reunion for my high school class was a couple of years back--although I was not able to attend, I did get back in touch with a number of old friends and acquaintances through Facebook, etc. It made me reflect on the ways that my life has surprised me--it's not at all what I predicted when I was 18--but I am still pretty happy with it.

Thus far, I've ended up single, childless, and living in Texas, when I expected to be married with children in a small town in New England. I thought I hated cities, and have now lived in two very large ones and liked it. I have more or less stuck with the career I chose in college (slightly different emphasis) but I have moved around a lot more than I thought I would--and have lived in some really neat places.

How has your life surprised you, in a good way?

[Mrs-M]

This is a great thread. (Hugging both you Amelia, and this thread). :)

One happy surprise that happened to me (and my family) a few years ago was adding two extra people to our family/home. It was completely and totally unplanned, so I never went through the traditional pregnancy process (with them), but I did have to change diapers, lots and lots of diapers, and I shed many tears just as I lived many ups and downs, but most of all it's the happiness and contentment I live with each day that reminds me of the fact that all things happen for a reason. :)

[sweetana3]

I am coming up on my 40th high school reunion. Have been married over 38 years and had a career with the same agency for 35 years. Moved across the country and traveled to some interesting countries overseas. Now retired and so very happy. Hope everyone from my class is as happy.

[Kestrel]

I intended to be single, become fluent in Spanish (in which I almost succeeded), move to South or Central America and teach English as a foreign language. I wound up marrying and putting my husband thru college doing basic clerical/public info-type jobs which I loved, living in some beautiful and isolated places, working the same type jobs while he furthered his career, and loving every minute of it. Not a WORD of Spanish heard in any of those places (and I've forgotten all I ever knew anyway). We're retired, very involved with our church (UU), exploring co-housing, close to our kids and grandkids. It don't get no better than this ...

[janharker]

Just out of college I decided that I didn't want to get married until I was at least 22. Well, I didn't get married until I was 48! While I came out of college with an education degree, I ended up doing all sorts of things not related until I began directing YMCAs. The education factor really helped lots, but I had to learn administration and fundraising on the fly. Anyway, at 47 I was forcibly 'retired' and then shortly afterward got married. I never would have predicted going from single professional to married homemaker. But I can't even begin to explain the extent to which my current status is the very best. School reunions? Not on your life!

[Mighty Frugal]

When I was a young girl I thought I would live an adventurous life-filled with intrigue and red lipstick....

As I grew older I still had images of fun and fecklessness but now I would be an eccentric aunt to all my nieces and nephew...

Then my career bit me in the behind and I became married to my job..so I figured I'd be a single, childless career women with loads of expensive clothes...

Part of me would dream about a typical life and figure it just wasn't in the celestial cards for me...the other part would scoff at it-who needed that boring existence? Really, what's the point of all that?

So to find myself married with two young boys is the biggest shock of my life...didn't get the children (or the husband) until I was 38..what a surprise!

[redfox]

But what happened to the red lipstick?

[iris lily]

The overarching arc of my life is pretty much the way I had envisioned it 30 years ago. I wanted to

Live in a real city--have a cool living space (probably Victorian)--do all of the things a city has to offer like go to the theatre, movies, restaurants, art & educational
events--not be consumed with child raising--have beloved pets--live deliberately and have money so that I never felt worred or pressued by lack of it.

I think that the one big single thing that is missing from my dream is world travel. I've got the right partner for it because DH whould go anywhere in a NEw YOrk minute, but we've tied ourselves to this place, this wonderful neighborhood that has all of our freinds and activities, and we will not now pull up stakes. But it's all a trade-off, my early vision really didn't factor in falling in love with a neighborhood in a city that I love.

So that's my dream and it came true. The presence of a husband was always a little vague in my dream scenario but my real life husband has been a great aid in acheiving the above goals.

[kib]

LOL! I've kept my list of goals and dreams for a long time now. When I was 12, I was an outspoken radical who was never getting married or having children, wanted to save the world and didn't care about money. When I was 20, I was going to be a doctor, marry a doctor, and live in Connecticut with 2 children and a sheepdog. (my, how original.) somewhere around 30 I rediscovered my 12 year old self and really haven't looked back, except for the husband. :~)

[RosieTR]

I thought I'd be a single professor, married to my work at this point. However, didn't get the PhD and not sad about that. I never expected to be married, especially not to be one of the first of my friends to do so but that's what happened. I also never thought I'd want to wind up in my hometown, which is not where we live now but where we are going to live as soon as we can! Lastly, if someone had told me how much a little dog would steal my heart, well, there's no way I would have believed them. But he did.:)

[loosechickens]

The happiest surprise of my life was that after I thought my life was over, having been left by my husband of fifteen years for a young woman who worked for us, barely older than our kids, in a splashy and all too public divorce......the Universe saw fit, within a few years to send me a man who turned out to be what must be one of the best husbands in the world, and my life, which I'd thought was over, and doomed to misery forever, turned out to be the next thirty-some years of happiness, continuing.

[goldensmom]

3 Happy Things - I was happily single then I met Prince Charming and now I am happily married. An early retirement opportunity came along so I am retired. Totally unexpected, I am living my parents life and love it (who'da'thunk that one?).

[leslieann]

When I was a (very) young woman, I was going to live in a city and do something fabulous. Vague, I know...the only part that was clear was that I would come home to my parents' house for a visit and be very, very cool. I said loudly and repeatedly that I would NOT be married with 2.5 kids, a station wagon and a dog and a house in the 'burbs. Well, be careful what you say out loud! I married at age 20, had three kids (the 2.5 isn't really practical), had a dog, a house in the 'burbs, and a mini-van which was the 80s version of the station wagon. But the really big surprise was a shift ten years ago, of divorce after a long marriage and raising the kids to adulthood, and now I live with my partner, his teen age daughter and in an adopted country. (Yes, immigration is as big a deal as foreign adoption).

In grad school, which I did concurrently with the three babies, my plan was to work as a therapist; I was derailed (well, not really...just a change of direction) into about 20 years of teaching in community college and university, but now in this chapter of my life, I work -yup!- as a therapist. So some things do come full circle. I am pretty happy with the way that things are at this moment, but that really doesn't matter, because things change. I guess maybe I have a sense of okayness with myself now that I haven't had before, and that seems to be more stable than circumstances.

Good thread! Thanks to the OP.

[madgeylou]

one of the best surprises to come my way was almost 3 years ago, when a cute friend i'd always admired but didn't get too close to because he was married, became unmarried. now we're building a life together and planning on getting married ourselves!

i never really saw myself in a relationshp this grounding and fun and good. surprise!

i'm not too surprised by the rest of my life, though. looking at how my 16 year old self dressed, it totally makes sense that i would end up starting a company making vintage-style clothes. :)

[Stella]

When I was a teenager I thought I'd live some bohemian life full of adventures. I figured I'd get married, but I didn't really know if I'd have kids or not.

I did get have a few years of bohemian living and crazy adventures in my early twenties. I lived in a semi-communal artist's warehouse with no private bathrooms, but a house band and our own art gallery. I dropped everything and moved across country on a whim. I married a 20 year old security guard I'd known for a month and dated for two weeks. That's when the pleasant surprise happened.

Marriage was more amazing than I ever expected it to be. I am crazy in love with that man. Three months after we got married I got pregnant and 6 days after our first anniversary I had our oldest DD and fell crazy in love with her. We're now due to have our fourth kid in a couple of months and I am crazy in love with every last one of these people.

We've moved home, not just to the city I grew up in, but the actual house I grew up in in the community I swore I'd never come back to when I was 17. I love it. I am throwing my heart and soul into building the community here and making it into something extraordinary. My dad, the one I thought I hated when I was 17, has moved back in with us and we are loving our multi-generational living situation. It's been so much fun seeing the shift in my own perspective over the years. My values are wildly different than they were in my teens and that has altered my dreams for the better.

I do still have adventures, but these days they are a little smaller in scale. A couple of years from now DH and I are hoping to launch out on some larger adventures with our kids in tow. The hope is that once he has his business established we can take a month out of the year to travel together during the slow season.

[razz]

My 10 year old self wanted a farm, to be self-sufficient, 4 children and to save the world. Marriage was a remote possibility because I was not going to be the submissive wife! I knew about artificial insemination and that was a real option. 10 year olds do know a lot more than we give them credit for.

I have the farm, a wonderful DH who is a full partner in the adventure, limited to two children that we could ensure a rich life and helped 'save the world' in a small way by changing restrictive legislation when the opportunity arose. I like me, love my life!

No high school reunions in my life though. College reunions are OK but infrequent. I notice that my peers really don't change but become more of what they seemed like in their 20's.

[JaneV2.0]

My grade school prediction went something like "Jane Doe, star of My Stormy Lady, is divorcing her 20th husband..." I'm happy that never happened, but I'm not surprised, as marriage has never held much appeal for me.

I am surprised--not pleasantly so--at the level of underachievement I've reached, even though I'm not the ambitious sort. (Where's that shiner smiley when you need him?)

[catherine]

Not going to go into it--too personal, but 1985 had happy surprises that convinced me of Divine Providence. (Hint: unexpected pregnancy; home foreclosure). Honestly, sometimes what you think is a bad experience turns out to be just the opposite.

[Tweety]

Life does take some odd and unpredictable directions! As a child I loved making art, singing and science, and had no desire to marry and have children. I had to make a choice of majors when I got to college and the science won because it seemed the best route to making a living. Somewhere in graduate school I got shanghai'd by a pregnancy, married and had 5 great kids in quick succession.
When the kids were beginning to go out on their own I looked at my prospects; I'd have to start from scratch with science, a career in music was possible but would mean moving to a big city (not on my list of favorite places) and that left art.
So I started learning some techniques and fell in love with clay. When my youngest left home to go to college I leapt into the abyss, got a part time job as a lab assistant, left home and husband and eventually set up my own pottery studio. For the next 30 years I made my living as a potter, selling the pots at art fairs and loving every minute!
Then one day 2 years ago I sat down at the wheel and said, "I think I'm done here!" I sold the supplies, gave away the kiln and the trailer and began painting. No more going down into the cold dark basement to throw clay, I could stay upstairs in the sunshine and paint! I still love doing the art fairs but with paintings now, and last summer actually won 2 awards with them!
Life is strange and beautiful, and I hope to keep on enjoying it for years to come.