What's next?

This is crazy rant that I had in my head this morning. I just felt that it needed out. Love it or leave it!

Here is the thing about growing up…It’s exciting when you are younger, intimidating when you are twenty, scary when your forty. I’ve got one word for it—OVERATED.

My baby cousin graduated from College this year. She is officially a grown-up—on paper at least. Now she has to find a job, and figure out her path in life. I wish her the best of luck in everything that she does. I remember those days all too well. They were unsettling to say the least. Gone are the days of reckless abandon. Fast coming are job interviews, bills, student loan payments. I remember thinking, “when did I grow up and how do I make it stop?”

I would like to be able to tell her that it will get better, and that things will work out the way that they are intended to. BUT—I know that these are the clichés that everyone else around her are handing her on a silver platter. They are words of comfort in an uncomfortable transition. The truth is that the tough decisions are going to keep on coming, and you just have to trust that you are heading down the right path.

I have great sympathy for her because the first 5 years of my twenties were not my favorites. I made a lot of mistakes, took a lot of people for granted, and wasted a lot of money. I didn’t do it right—things didn’t turn out the way that I wanted them to.  Quarter life crisis was in high gear in my mid-twenties. I want to shelter her from that. But I know I can’t! The truth is that I have entered into an entirely new crisis in my life. It is one that I haven’t yet defined.

Isn’t it funny how we spend the first 18 years of our life begging for time to speed up, and then the rest of our life struggling against the pace. I see it every day in my daughter’s face. When I put her down for the night I always think—please don’t grow up little girl—I’m not ready. But grow up she will. Isn’t that the reason that we have them… to raise them, mold them, love them into amazing humans? I no longer worry about growing older myself, but I worry about something much scarier. What’s next?

That’s the question folks…What is next? It’s the one we ask ourselves through every major transition in life. When we are kids and we go from elementary to middle school we worry about what is next. When we go to college…get married…are pregnant…are a new mom. What is next? I will admit that I have always been a pusher. When I graduated from college I wanted to get married, so I pushed and pushed and pushed my college sweetheart for a ring—A ring that I would never get from him. When I heard, “I’m not ready,” I moved on. I was ready…dammit. He was holding me back from what was next. He was keeping me from that plan in the back of my mind. That plan was Married by 24 and baby by 26. I didn’t want to be an older mom. I wanted to have my children young. Truth was that we were not right for each other, and he obviously knew that. It would have been a disastrous pairing for the long haul.

I was married by 24 and I had P at 26. There was a lot of pressuring my poor husband so that those things would coincide with the schedule in my head. AND FOR WHAT? Would it have made a difference if it were a year down the road? Or two? Probably not…but I was rushing towards P. I was worried that I would never have kids because of my PCOS. But I did have her, and she is perfect. I thought that after she was here that I would relax.  I figured that there would be peace in my heart. Something in my mind that would say…this is it. You are where you wanted to be, and now you can just enjoy it. And it was that way—for about four and half months. Let me just say that I know I am CRAZY. She is five months old, and I find myself tearing up when another one of my facebook friends announces that they are pregnant.

It all stems from this…My husband does not want another child.  He feels done. BUT I DO NOT FEEL DONE. I feel sad at each one of my daughter’s milestones. I look at them all as my first and lasts. I feel a sadness at the thought that she may grow up without a sibling. That if anything were to happen to me that she would bear that alone. Truthfully, I don’t want another for a few years. So why am I worried about it. I think it is the permanence of the statement—done. The thought of never being pregnant, delivering, or nursing another baby—it makes me very sad. When I express these thoughts to my hubs he says, “no matter how many times you did it, it would never be enough for you.” Maybe he is right.

I have that personality flaw. Nothing is ever enough. The grass is always greener. Guilty as charged. Maybe my feelings come from the fact hat everything up until now was expected—and now I am unsure of what the rest of my life would hold. I have always had the end to journey towards. Now, I am just on the journey searching for my end.

So the question is … what is next for me?