It’s clockwork. My eyes open to the blinding red numbers of the alarm - 5:18 - in my dawn-lit bedroom each morning. My sense of sight begins each day and within milliseconds my sense of hearing is keyed by the tune of my husband’s deep-sleep breathing. How I envy him. On occasion, I’ll take a moment to sigh and then each time, instantaneously, I decide against it. In reality, it’s an unwarranted action so soon after a decent rest. Usually, my next step for the day would be to slither my legs out from under the fortress of warmth covering them, with the rest of my body slowly following so as not to wake my husband from his sleep. However, one morning, for no identifiable reason when my eyes opened to those same red numbers on the alarm clock, I decided not to get out of bed. I don’t particularly remember what day of the week it was, but I do remember why I stayed in bed.
How did I get here? I don’t mean, “How did I get into this bed?” I mean, “How did I get to this point in my life?” I am twenty-seven years old and what do I have to show for my life? A high school diploma, a honorable military separation from over five years ago – God, five years already, the ongoing pursuit of an undergraduate degree while working full-time, two failed pregnancies, serious weight gain with lack of motivation to do anything about it, and the removal of a cancerous mole on my back. I am twenty-seven years old and these are the events that have encompassed the past ten years of my life.
If someone would have asked me ten years ago, “Where do you see yourself in the year 2005?” I imagine my response would have been similar to this: “On an assignment for the National Geographic as lead photo-journalist, living amongst the nomads in the vast sand hills of the Sahara Desert. I’ll be snapping pictures of dama deer as they cross the top of a desert hill, while the sun, off in the distance, creates heat waves on its descent. I will write about my adventures of living with the nomads on their journey to a new area of the desert. I will write about how the nomads only travel after the blistering desert sun hides behind the night sky, which creates a cooler climate for their move. I’ll travel humbly, bringing only the necessities and I’ll attempt to learn the native language of the nomads.”
I felt embarrassed, disappointed and regretful about my fallen dream. Then, when my thought was interrupted by my husband’s loud snore, I immediately felt embarrassed, disappointed and regretful, once again, for feeling this way. At that moment, the music on the alarm clock sounded. It wasn’t loud. As I lay there, not really thinking about anything at this point, I began listening to the song that was playing. I started to pay attention to the words of the song and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The song was about someone being 15 years old for a moment and what happens at that age, then 33 years old for a moment and what happens at that age, etc. However, the chorus of the song is what really strummed my heartstrings. “Every day’s a new day…Time to buy and time to choose…when you only got 100 years to live." The words to the song were an epiphany to me. “When you only have one-hundred years to live,” I whispered under my breath. I never thought about my life from that point-of-view. One hundred years is not a long time and I’m only going to be twenty-seven years old for a moment.
In that instance, I decided that I was no longer going to waste my moments dwelling on decisions I made in the past that cannot be changed. Instead, I seized that moment and I made the decision that I was going to become a forward thinker. That morning, as I slithered my way out of bed and quietly shut the alarm off, I felt as if my spirit had been renewed. I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror for the first time without any regret. I went through my usual morning rituals before going to work, but I could tell, as I leaped off my front step and strolled down the walkway to my car, that today was going to be the beginning of a new moment in my life.
January 28, 2008
It’s been since the summer of 2005 that I wrote this blurb about myself. Since then, I’ve had several cancerous moles removed from my body, I am on a regular 6-month schedule to monitor “suspicious growths” on my thyroid, but I finally had a successful pregnancy and I have a beautiful daughter who is almost two. I cringe when I look in the mirror, sometimes, but I no longer wished I lived with the nomads or was running free with dama deer. Nope, I’m happy as can be with where I am in my life right now. Although I have to read this essay every once in a while to remind myself to think forward I do believe I am where I’m supposed to be.
