Graduation

Today is the 25^th anniversary of my high school graduation. 

It seems like a lifetime ago, but in reality 25 years passes by at the speed of life. 

At that point in my life, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do or what direction I was heading in. Some days, I still don’t.

I don’t have any pictures of me from high school. They were all lost during various moves. Sometimes I wish I could look back and see where I was and where I am today.

Were there any glimpses of who I was to become in that 18 year old smile? If I look in the mirror today, can I see who I was then still?

I was a bottle blonde in high school. I remember when colored contacts came out, I was desperate for blue eyes too. I wasn’t happy with my natural looks, and it took me a very long time to accept that I was a brunette with green eyes. The fact that I still highlight my hair proves that acceptance to be tenuous at best. I always thought I was ugly, and had no idea of my own power until I was much older. I will never be a beauty queen, but I am beautiful in my own way.

I also battled my weight in high school. I still do. I struggle with it. I have been on a gazillion diets over the last 25 plus years, and honestly nothing has stuck. I am currently reading a well recommended book called Made to Crave, which I hope can help shed some insight into why this is a difficult area of my life and one that requires much work. I had lost a lot of weight in high school, and at one point wore a size two. 

The problem was I also was doing a lot of unhealthy things to maintain that weight, and when I think back to how much that impacted my joy, it makes me sad. I starved myself to the point I passed out at my after school job. I also did the old binge and purge, to the point where it ruined the enamel on my teeth. Healthy eating habits were a mystery to me until I met my beloved-who was into body building at the time.

 I learned so much about nutrition and healthy choices from him-and after all these years, I am still learning.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, other than being a wife and mother. I bounced around a lot of career ideas: librarian, teacher, accountant. I wound up in accounting, which I have grown into, on my terms. I have had many different careers from stay at home mom to retail management to accountant. Each one added a new facet to me, and made me who I am today. 

Some life lessons I could have done without, but then again I wouldn’t be who I am today without them.