Hopes and Dreams Deferred

 Normal? What is normal? Merriam-Webster defines normal as “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern: characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine.” According to this definition, my life has been anything but normal according to societies standards. To be honest, I feel as though my “normal” has been downright screwed up. 

 

Yes, I grew up in a two-parent home. Yes, they were together until death did, they part. But what is normal about growing up in small town Alabama being the eldest and only daughter of one of the town’s local undertakers? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! The only thing normal that I did do was grow up, go to school, and get the hell out of town. Well, that was until I came back. But that's a story for another day.

 

Some aspects of my life were fun growing up in a funeral home, some were creepy, some were pathetic, and some were downright sad. If by chance I had the opportunity to go back and change much of my childhood years, I would most definitely have a list of do overs. I mean how many children do you know whose playroom is a reposing room and you don't think twice about it? Or that the same room is where your Christmas tree was, and Santa brought your gifts. I guess you can say I was born in this and for this life. After all, I was conceived and brought home from the hospital to this place. But this sure as hell was not the life, I thought I would have.

 

Here I am with less than six months to go to yet another birthday that then leads into another Thanksgiving, another Christmas, and then another new year. As soon as the clock strikes midnight and the celebrations begin, we all have made those promises that we will start over fresh. It is going to be our year. We are going to change how we eat, our exercise habits, or our selfcare regimen to live a better life.  But by week two or three of the new year, we find ourselves in the same routine repeatedly. Then we proclaim that the “new year” for us will begin at the beginning of the next month and then the next until here we are, January 1^st again.

 

I keep hoping and praying with each new year that this indeed would be my year. God was going to send my husband and he would be everything that I prayed for and more. But with every passing year it is if God has clearly thought I was funny and laughed at my dreams as though they were a set of jokes told on Def Comedy Jam. I was supposed to be one of those smalltown girls that had the big lavish wedding, have this wonderful life with this man made for me and give birth to his children. We would attend church together every Sunday. Sit at the table, eat dinner together and discuss our respective days. The kids were supposed to hang out with me and my mom on our little weekend excursions around the state to visit places we had never been or to see historical sites we have read and heard about. I was supposed to be the mom with the large SUV dropping and picking up kids from practices, sports events and sleepovers. I dreamed of being that wife and mother that had her home decorated to the point you thought Christmas had tastefully thrown up in it. I would bake with the kids and our family would host holiday parties and invite our friends to partake in good food, stiff drinks and lots of laughs. Instead, I am in my mid 40s, single and I do not have one child of my own. I live in a house fit for a family that I decorate during the holidays. No holiday parties. No dinner and laughs with friends. Just me waking up on Christmas morning alone and traveling to spend half the day at my mom’s house just to eat and not spend the day at home feeling sorry for myself. 

 

According to my cousin, that is in the middle of a divorce and on a slippery slope to forty, there is an art to dating in this day and time. She feels we need to conquer that art so that we can find the men that are right for us. She has been listening to a bunch of those self-help gurus that give their rationale as to why men and women have such a hard time finding and securing a mate. Everyone has their theories from the preacher to the hairstylist. One thing that these various podcast and YouTube videos and her subsequent sharing of information has done is cause me to look at myself. I am examining my foundation, analyzing how it affected my life, and even how it will dictate my future. 

 

There are many things that can be identified as reasons why I am now in this situation. We can all make a ridiculous number of excuses, but at the end of the day it all comes back down to me. I look back at how I have conducted myself in life. Did I miss my husband because he was that man that I turned down because he did not fit the package that I thought I should have? Or he could even be the man that I did not think I was not good enough for because I did not feel as though I fit societies definition of beautiful or being the right size. Oh yeah and do not forget my favorite, the man I thought I was going to make what I wanted him to be or really was not right for me from the beginning. No matter which of these reasons is the most accurate or even a combination of more than one, it has got to be fixed and fixed now.