Party Time…Excellent

As we go through life, people love to tell us what we should achieve at various stages.  People love to say a lot of things that are full of hooey.  If you set a timeframe for yourself based upon your personal life and goals, awesome, but no objectives are one size fits all.  My 20s and 30s were not what I planned or expected or matched what anyone else said they should be, that’s for sure. 

I was speaking with a friend recently, and she said that at this point, she didn’t have the long term relationship she expected to be in.  At the same time, she has a fantastic education, career, owns her own home, has traveled the world, and speaks multiple languages.  To be honest, this accomplished woman describes a lot of my friends.  I have amazing, smart, and talented friends.  Now I wouldn’t trade my relationship for anything; at the same time, I wasn’t able to have the career I wanted, and I’m so far behind where I visioned myself to be at 43.  Some people say I’m the lucky one, those folks weren’t there for the 18 years of hellacious health issues and don’t understand what I went through and missed out on.  However, my hubs was by my side the whole time. 

This week, my amazing husband received his MBA diploma, and I’m so proud of him.  He didn’t take the traditional route to college.  He tried a couple times but needed to find his own path to get there.  When we moved to Upstate NY, he decided to start with the local community college, then continued to his BS online with SUNY Empire State College, then proceeded to his MBA.  He did it while working full time and, for many of those years, watched me go to medical appointments, have hospital stays, and multiple surgeries.  It wasn’t the easiest balance to maintain.

Approaching his goal this way meant he had to do homework while on vacation, he did work on his days off, went to work all day, then wrote papers all night, we left family gatherings and holidays early so he could get his homework done.  We didn’t do a ton of date nights or over-scheduled ourselves so that he had time.  There weren’t only sacrifice on his part.  We worked together as a team for him to achieve this dream.  Now that he has, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.  He needs a new project.  He’s open to ideas and suggestions.

Once someone has done something incredible, other people sit back and say they made it look easy or wonder how it got done.  From listening to writers and other successful folks, they worked at it every day.  They made it part of their daily routine and often sacrificed along the way.  David Sedaris had described friends being upset with him for missing gatherings to stay home and work. He writes every day, even while on vacation.  We, as the onlookers, only see the final product, so it seems to appear as if by magic.

Now that my hubby is done and caught up on sleep and World of Warcraft, I know he’s wondering what’s next in his life.  I believe that’s a good thing for any of us to think about as we move through this existence.  Having a goal or something to aim for gives us drive and hope, but we must never forget to celebrate along the way.  Babe, I’m so proud of you, and I know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed, congratulations!!