Serendipity
A glass of margarita can go a long way
Let me be sentimental today. Give an old woman a break; I just celebrated my 30-somethingth birthday last Sunday and I'm feeling quite vulnerable. Age, I found out, brings not only the beginnings of gout, but also makes cynics like me maudlin and weepy.
I know that 30-something is not anywhere near 90 (the age I morbidly think as my dying age -- too old, I know), but I just love to play it up, to both sulk and soak in the power it holds. Age brings about change and hopefully, wisdom, makes us look back to the past, assess the present, and prepare for the future. As I turned another year older (and wiser, I should hope), I posted something in my blog which I wanted to share with you that was originally meant to be read by only a few of my friends. But since I'm feeling quite "exhibitionistic" and emotional, I would also like to share it with the rest of the free world (again, we have an online version, 24/7). What I wrote was neither epiphanic nor life-altering, but it's one of those realizations that made me want to pat my own back and say, "in spite of it all, you did well, woman."
The long and winding dirt road
Yesterday, I was having drinks in a bar called Black Bear in Hoboken with Monette, my sorority batchmate and friend. Earlier, she treated me to a nice birthday dinner, and after gorging on fattening pizza and pasta, we crossed the street to Black Bear to have a couple of margaritas. As I was listening to her talk about her marriage plans and her almost perfect life (to me it seemed perfect: she had a brand new apartment in one of the best places in NJ, a great boyfriend, a thriving career, etc., etc.), I realized that some people do walk the straight path. They make intelligent choices. They make good decisions. They go to the best schools, graduate, get high paying jobs that they also love doing, and choose their men wisely.
So I'm asking myself: why did I have to take the long and winding dirt road when I could've just zoomed through the cemented and straight highway? I don't know. Maybe I was just masochistic -- liking the bumps, the stomach-turning curves and humps. I knew I had a choice, but I just wanted to risk it all, to take 'the road less traveled'. Unwise I know, but taking that road shaped me to become who I am now -- someone who's a little crazy but who's also more sane than anyone else. Sure I had my regrets, I did things that I shouldn't have done. But they're all part of the grand scheme of my life. Like Oprah, I know that for sure.
Everything we do will always amount to something. Everything we do will always form those little puzzle pieces of our lives, that when completed will either make us cry with regret, wince in pain or disgust, or make us happy and content. I'm trying to re-design my puzzle and change some of the pieces right now. Hopefully, at the end of my so called life, it will no longer be a puzzle, but a completed whole (where all the pieces fit) that will show how I've lived my life.
For those of you still on that dirt road (I'm at the end of mine), stop for gas, and stretch your legs from time to time -- it's going to be one hell of a long, bumpy, but exciting ride.