12.16.06
The Things No One Tells You
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Christmas Fun and Games, Laurie Furnell
Boy, the holidays bring out the kid in all of us. I was one of those kids who didn’t want to be a kid. I thought my parents were pretty selfish and kidlike themselves, so I wanted to be an adult, and I wanted to handle the responsibilities. And I wanted to do a good job. I think if I hadn’t had those thoughts in my head as a child, then I would have been very disappointed with the realities of adulthood. There are a lot of hard choices, even sacrifices that have to be made – when you realize you can’t have it all. When you realize that to have a spouse – it means you have to take someone else’s needs and wants into consideration (even if they don’t really respect yours), it also means you have to make them respect your needs and wants! To have children, well, for me, that became the easiest choice to make – when it became apparent that I would have to forego all of my hopes and plans for my own career so that I could care for my handicapped son – there was no looking back, there wasn’t even a second’s worth of deliberation.
My adult life didn’t work out any where near what I had planned for myself – SURPRISE!- but I wouldn’t trade what I have for anything in the world!
