Sometimes I wonder...

Twelve years ago I had a very different idea of what my life would be like. Very different. Of course, 12 years ago I was still a teenager. But anyway.
I never wanted to get married. I thought marriage was old-fashioned, silly, and mostly doomed to failure. I didn't have good marriage models. As I've aged I've come to realize what a gift marriage can be, and what a privilege it is when so many in our society are denied the simple right to marry based on their choice of partner. (And aren't I funny? As I've aged. I'm really not that old...but moving on.) Anyway, here I am, married. Only recently though. We did cohabitate for quite a long time, and for a long time that was enough. But after a while I realized how much being married really meant to me, and so we went ahead with it.
I also never ever wanted to have children. I didn't like children. I didn't know what to do with them. They were strange, foreign little people that were mostly unintelligible, smelled, cried, and generally were kind of pointless. Or something like that. I really can't remember what it was about kids that put me off, but I know I didn't want them. When I was 18 I got a job working with kids and realized what fun they really were. They were so open, curious, funny, and best of all...they think you're really cool. At least for a while. So I decided I wanted kids. But I didn't want to start until I was 27. And now we have two. And I'm 27.
I thought I would be successful in some career, making decent money, maybe buying a house. Not pushing myself to finish a degree because it really did take me that long to figure out what I wanted to do. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to stay home with my kids while they're small, and I really love school. But this is not what I pictured. A small apartment, homework (mine, not theirs), a husband, being a housewife. It's just not what I imagined. And sometimes I wonder...
What would my life be like without my husband? My kids? If I had finished school when I was first out of high school? Life takes us funny places sometimes, and if I could go back in time, I would tell my 15-year-old self, it is so much better than I ever could have imagined. Maybe it's not what I thought it would be, but in so many ways, it's better.