so the other day I was thinking....

Everyone I know is getting older. I realize that every second of every day we all grow older, but in a more abstract sense of the word, I feel as though everyone I know is getting older. and so imagine my suprise when the other day it occured to me that within the next ten years I will probably have a child. That's right. Ten years is not a long time and a child is a really really big deal. So after my panic attack began to subside I thought about all the things I have done in the past ten years. I am not going to create a completely self-serving list of things - but I feel that since half-way through the 8th grade I've achomplished a fair number of things.

In grade 8 I wore black jeans pretty much everyday, still had my mom drive to me the mall (in fairness, we used to go to the across town mall to see movies with our across-town friends), did not think I was especialy beautiful, had never dated a boy, didn't know my parents as people, didn't really appreciate art and knew what I wanted out of life.

Since that time things have changed, I now wear blue jeans, take the bus all by myself, think I am beautiful, have dated a boy (a man even!), know and love my parents as the beautiful and imperfect people they are, love art and am no longer sure what I want out of life.

However, I still rarely wear skirts, I don't like to drive, I cannot do my own hair, I have never been married, I still don't know my sister as a person, I don't like ballet and I know very little about opera, and I cannot see my future.

My point is that ten years is a long time. In ten years I expect to be the person I am now, just with different priorities, a little more money, and more people to love. And at the end of my thought about having a child within ten years, I realized that when that happens I will be both ready (or as ready as one can be) and lucky, even if right now I couldn't begin to tell you where in the world I will be in ten years, or what I will be doing, or what I will think or believe. But see the thing is, in the last 10 years I have begun to trust myself. And that is why I know it will be all good.