Flash Forward...

Husband and I are teetering on the verge of a ten year anniversary in March. I can't believe it...10 years! It seems like yesterday I flunked geometry (background ... we met in summer school my Junior year...me geometry and him algebra...LitlBit doesn't have a chance in math unless she inherits those genes from my mom)! I can still hear Mr. Dunsmore, my geometry teacher, giving me the news about summer school. He must have said I'm sorry ten times in the course of one conversation! Years later I saw him out and he once again apologized! My one brief stint with public schools and it has turned into a lifetime of experiences. When I think of the days gone by and the people from the past...yes, summer school seems like a lifetime away.

Flash forward sixteen years...ten year wedding anniversary! Now our footlose and fancy free Sundays are beginning at the butt crack of dawn! LitlBit makes it her goal to get all she can out of the day it seems! Flash forward to the dog staring you down to go outside...the cat sitting on your stomach meowing for food...the laundry piling up...dishes to wash...playrooms to clean...bills...bills...and more bills! Oh, and a job. A real job...one that actually matters (for me and the ones I work for). Flash forward to responsibility!

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) I have never been one to have the luxury of not having responsibility. I began working at the moment I possibly could (literally...got the permit on my birthday) and have not stopped yet with responsibilities. A lot of people say that only children are spoiled. Well, I am here to tell you that is not always true! I took care of me! I bought my clothes and anything else I needed the day I started my job. This is not an exageration either. Mom threw the responsibility of me to me. Not that I really minded though. I rather enjoyed being able to buy things for myself without the interference of other's viewpoints. I am independent today by design. I was raised to be that way. I was certainly not raised with the idea that I was supposed to get married and have a family and the book was closed. I was raised to be independent, take care of myself and be whatever. I rather like that. I hope that LitlBit takes a little bit of that to heart. I can only hope that she too will be independent like her mommy. Raised to take care of herself and that she can be/do anything she wants to. Life is too short to live by the tired rules set forth by unspoken words. I don't think that I have any question about her though. Already Miss Independent, one of her favorite things to say is, "You can do anything, anything you can do." My LitlBit is learning early that the world is her oyster.

It is amazing how these days have past. People that meant so much to you are suddenly erased as if they were never there. Ten years has seen a marriage, deaths, a child, friends anew and friends forgotten, new memories made and some pushed away. If one had told me these ten years would be filled with so much I would have laughed! If we go back to sixteen years when I first met my husband...wow...I know I would have been humored! Now, I know how quickly it all goes and just try to hold on to each day like a grain of sand. Although, ten years from now I am sure I will look back just as I am now and wonder even more how it all went by.