At my high school graduation, our key speaker drove those three words home. He told all of us graduates to never be part of the shoulda, woulda, coulda club. You know the club. I shoulda never dated that guy because I can't get those years back! I woulda bought that dress but I don't really have a place to wear it! I coulda been a doctor but all that science got in the way! In other words, seize the day and make things happen in your life so that you don't have all those statements when you're older.
Well here comes the older part, and as hard as I've tried, I still have those statements! As I look at turning 40 in about six months, I've been thinking back on my life. Sure I've done some exciting things. I attended my first choice college, although I graduated from a different one. I can say that I had the small school and major university experience and I'm richer for it. I've traveled to fun cities around the country and I've been out of the country twice. I've moved four major times throughout my life and made some amazing friends and memories along the way. I lived on my own, on the Country Club Plaza which was something I always wanted to do, and experienced my independence. And, I got married and started a family with a great guy!
But there are things in my life that I wish I had done along the way. I wish I had been more goal oriented while I was in college. My only goal was to get out! I hated school. I loved the social aspect, but I hated the actual attending class. I graduated with a Theater Performance degree and loved the core classes. However, I struggled to get out of the required courses. My senior year, I remember sitting in the hall (and what I was wearing) waiting for my next class to start when my professor approached me and said "Why didn't you think of majoring in fashion merchandising?" That's a career? Those are courses that are offered? Attending a small liberal arts college in Southwest Virgina, they didn't offer fashion merchandising, so by the time I transferred to the University of Missouri I was knee deep in my theater degree. I didn't know that fashion anything was an option. My life coulda been so different in the fact that I coulda been in a career I love, doing something that matter to me. Even if it seems frivolous, people need clothes!
I consider myself, and my family, gypsies. Nomads. Moving from place to place and never really setting down roots. When my dad took a job with United Telephone in 1974, I'm sure he never thought he would live Tennessee. However, in 1982 we moved to Overland Park, KS and to us, it was the largest city in the world. We moved from Blountville, TN. In 2010, the total population for Blountville stood at a little over 3,000 so you can imagine the total in 1982. We stayed in Kansas until 1989 when we moved to Manassas, VA. A suburb 27 miles outside of Washington D.C., you can imagine how big the city was now! Then, in 1993, we relocated to Jefferson City, MO.... We won't go there. What I'm getting at is that we moved every four to six years and started a new beginning! I've been in Overland Park, my second time around, for 16 years and that's the longest I've lived anywhere! I feel stagnant from time to time, itching to move. I wish I had moved one more time. I wish I had moved to either NY or LA just to say I had. But I didn't and I feel like I coulda done something so cool. Even if I had found my way back here, which is possible, I coulda used one more move.
I look back on my life, okay my life as an adult up until now, and wish I had taken more risks. As I've gotten older, gotten married, had a baby, spent almost 14 years with one company, it becomes increasingly difficult to take risks. I have to be a responsible adult, but at times, I want to throw caution to the wind and just say "go for it"! Things I want to do with my life: 1) open a specialty boutique, 2) open a children's bookstore, 3) start a bakery, 4) start my jewelry company again and/or 5) become a stylist. Items 2, 3 and 5 stand out the most! But, I can't take those financial risks therefore leaving me saying, I woulda started these business if I were younger. I have so many ideas and I'm pretty sure I could be successful at them. My husband calls adult ADD!
The last thing on the list, for now, is world travel. No, I can't exactly travel the world, but I would really like to travel abroad. I had hoped to have a trip to Italy planned by the time I turned 40, but that is fallen by the wayside. I keep telling myself "one day" in hopes that I don't end up saying "I shoulda gone to Italy for my 40 birthday" when I'm 85! I haven't and won't give up on this one!
Am I alone in these thoughts? There have to be others out there who think about things like this from time to time. But maybe there aren't. Maybe there are people who are perfectly content with the lives they've led, and that's wonderful! I'm not unhappy with my life, not at all, but I do tend to daydream about what life coulda been if only I had take a leap of faith....
I consider myself, and my family, gypsies. Nomads. Moving from place to place and never really setting down roots. When my dad took a job with United Telephone in 1974, I'm sure he never thought he would live Tennessee. However, in 1982 we moved to Overland Park, KS and to us, it was the largest city in the world. We moved from Blountville, TN. In 2010, the total population for Blountville stood at a little over 3,000 so you can imagine the total in 1982. We stayed in Kansas until 1989 when we moved to Manassas, VA. A suburb 27 miles outside of Washington D.C., you can imagine how big the city was now! Then, in 1993, we relocated to Jefferson City, MO.... We won't go there. What I'm getting at is that we moved every four to six years and started a new beginning! I've been in Overland Park, my second time around, for 16 years and that's the longest I've lived anywhere! I feel stagnant from time to time, itching to move. I wish I had moved one more time. I wish I had moved to either NY or LA just to say I had. But I didn't and I feel like I coulda done something so cool. Even if I had found my way back here, which is possible, I coulda used one more move.
I look back on my life, okay my life as an adult up until now, and wish I had taken more risks. As I've gotten older, gotten married, had a baby, spent almost 14 years with one company, it becomes increasingly difficult to take risks. I have to be a responsible adult, but at times, I want to throw caution to the wind and just say "go for it"! Things I want to do with my life: 1) open a specialty boutique, 2) open a children's bookstore, 3) start a bakery, 4) start my jewelry company again and/or 5) become a stylist. Items 2, 3 and 5 stand out the most! But, I can't take those financial risks therefore leaving me saying, I woulda started these business if I were younger. I have so many ideas and I'm pretty sure I could be successful at them. My husband calls adult ADD!
The last thing on the list, for now, is world travel. No, I can't exactly travel the world, but I would really like to travel abroad. I had hoped to have a trip to Italy planned by the time I turned 40, but that is fallen by the wayside. I keep telling myself "one day" in hopes that I don't end up saying "I shoulda gone to Italy for my 40 birthday" when I'm 85! I haven't and won't give up on this one!
Am I alone in these thoughts? There have to be others out there who think about things like this from time to time. But maybe there aren't. Maybe there are people who are perfectly content with the lives they've led, and that's wonderful! I'm not unhappy with my life, not at all, but I do tend to daydream about what life coulda been if only I had take a leap of faith....
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