Moving on…

How did you choose what to do after high school? Did anyone provide valuable advice which influenced your decision?

This is the next prompt from Carla at AllofMeNow, who is running the Mom Before Mom series that I’ve been writing each weekend. I LOVE these pieces- initially because they allowed me the time to reflect, but now because they give me the right to feel things I didn’t get a chance to as a child.

I had always known that I would go to college. I dreamt of becoming a flight attendant, and then of being a doctor. The doctor thing stuck with me for a while. I was going to cure cancer. My cousin had died at 18 of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and I was going to stop it from ever happening again.

Then my Dad died. April 21, 1998 I had more than just bad dreams to battle, I had the dreams of a child crushed under the weight of fluid filled lungs and a 6’1″ man residing in a cold bed, now housing a 140 pound body. It sounds graphic. It might have been. Regardless, he was gone and I could never face my dreams again.

So… I did what lots of girls do- I tried to find my Dad. I didn’t go around to boys looking for them to be daddy, I dated boys who had strong dads who would protect me and love me as their own. They helped shape me into the woman I became- some offering advice on how to throw a punch, some telling me tales of how to write a good cover letter. It was all encompassing of my father, who would have shown me and told me how to do everything from reducing the swelling on a bruised knee, to building my own computer and how to french-braid my own hair.

You’re wondering how this has anything to do with my post-high school life? Let’s call him Mer. Mer and I had a relationship- he’d graduated from a college in Rhode Island earlier in the year we’d met, that I later graduated from as well. Prior to my application, acceptance, scholarship, over-achievement and early commencement, I was lost. My whole life I was going to cure cancer, but as I moved into my later teen years, I learned to accept the fact that I had no ability to separate myself from feeling. Six years of schooling, grueling nights working on a cadaver, no sleep, little money, insurance risks- all this meant nothing. What stopped me from accepting the obligation I’d laid upon myself 5 years prior to my high school graduation- to cure cancer- was the fact that I could not tell a child they were going to lose their parent.

So, as I held onto my high school job of working in a kitchen and found I loved planning events (I’d even been so blessed as to need to color code and list most aspects of my life), and Mer told me all about Johnson & Wales University, I knew I had my next step planned. Done and done.

It sounds so silly… how I got there, what it meant. I’ve done very little with my degree since 2008- I graduated in 2006. I learned a lot about the non-profit sector, and that’s been helpful… but I was meant to change things. Big things. I wasn’t just meant to plan weddings… which, by the way, I love! I have a wedding coming up in September, and I am SO glad to be back in the saddle (two weddings in two years can make a planner want more more more), but beyond that… I have a larger goal, a longer stride, a destiny to make a difference.

I’ve awoken in a cold sweat more than once, swearing that I was 13 again standing at the side of my father’s bed rattling off a litany of medications and therapies, transfusions and a test for… but I wake up. Before I can hear myself breathing as though I’ve just run a marathon, there is a high-pitched beep in my ear signifying a flat line. They’re all dead. My cousin, my Dad. Thousands of patients I didn’t save.

It sounds morbid, but perhaps it’s what led me to now. If I had gone to med school, I would have been confined to a lab, spending years of my life fighting to cure something I truly believe the pharmaceutical companies don’t want to cure (this is a whole other topic about conspiracy that I firmly believe in). I wish I could know my cousin now- she would be 34… I wish my Dad had walked me down the aisle at my wedding… but who would I have married? Where would I have graduated from? Forget college… I never would have gone to Upper Moreland. I would have been a Spring Side-er. I would have been a normal kid, whatever that means. I would not have met Dave and we never would have had Addie.

Because it’s Sunday, I’ll say it: I chose what to do after high school because I believe God has a plan. Is it the God hanging, bloody on the wooden cross in my Catholic church? Maybe not. Maybe it’s really the Messiah and we’re still waiting, maybe it’s just the idea that something besides our selfish souls and a boy named Mer controls where we end up.

There is a path, and it led me here. To Dave, to Addie, to writing.

Would you like peanuts?

As if I haven’t mentioned this before… I LOVE these Mom before Mom prompts. They bring me back to some fantastic times in my life, as well as reliving and remembering that sometimes life just isn’t fair and that’s OK. Thank you, Carla, at AllofmeNow!

This week’s prompt: What did you want to be when you grew up? Do you still harbor a desire to be that? When did you realize your dream was or wasn’t possible?

“My name is Michelle. I drew myself as a stewardess. A stewardess is…” Thanks to Mrs. Carpenter’s class and Career Day, I knew what I wanted to be: a flight attendant. I wanted to travel the world, be a free spirit and serve others. Sounds silly, but my bachelors is in hospitality- so I guess the desire to serve others never went away. I don’t remember too much about the day our parents came in to school tell what they did and what our reactions were (except to Geoff’s grandfather- who ran a gymnastics school I painfully wanted to go to, but was too tall by the 5th grade to ever be admitted), but I do remember the life size portraits we made of ourselves in our desired positions.

In art class, our bodies were traced and then we decorated our paper-selves as we imagined we would be as adults. I remember painting a hat on myself, and a navy blue uniform- more of a business looking suit- complete with my pin of wings. I imagined a perfect bob beneath my cap, a red painted smile and gloved hands. I saw myself becoming this:

Air Stewardess (1962)
A novel by Marguerite Nelson

From “Star of Davida” on Blogspot

I wanted to serve people in a professional manner and see the world, and I wanted to look good doing it. Although I think my ship has sailed (or plan has flown) to pursue a career as a flight attendant, I still imagine myself as a jet-setter in my dreams. Something like this, maybe?

Illustration from 123RF.com

I suppose a conflict of boyfriend and reality both got in my way, in terms of being a flight attendant. There were so many things I wanted to do- being a doctor was high on the list- but I always found something to limit me. In this case, I knew I could never tell a parent or a child that they were going to lose the other, so I knew being a doctor was not in my future. I disappointed many teachers when I told them I would not be applying for any pre-med programs. Then, there was the idea that I would go to school for business, but that seemed too general for me, which led me to hospitality. There were so many things I could do with my degree, but I chose to focus on events. I. Love. Weddings. I love Love. I use it as a proper noun, because when it’s real love, it’s Love. I do not think you Love only once in your life, but whether you are celebrating your first, or your last, or maybe the one in the middle- I have some insane desire to help people plan their day. And so, a planner I was.

Sadly, this economy can only harbor so many wedding planners, and while the 7am-1am days wore thin on me, I drifted away from my plan of being J.Lo in The Wedding Planner. Plus, what if I fell in love with Matthew McAbs? His country-boy accent would eventually wear out its welcome, and long after the credits rolled, I’m sure I would have moved on to be with someone more suitable for me (like Dave). Alas, I digress.

I guess I made it impossible to catch my dream of applying to be a flight attendant because I was in love with a boy. One when I applied to, and decided to attend JWU, and a different one when I graduated. The idea of leaving someone for a career seemed too far-fetched, although sometimes I want to kick myself in the rear end for stunting my professional growth for two people I no longer have feelings of love for. Everything happens for a reason, and if my two feet had not been planted on the ground, I would not have married the man of my dreams.

Being Addie’s mom, I have found myself more invested in the idea of traveling- especially to LPA conferences and hopefully to DC to help make some much needed changes for our new community we call family. There are so many things I do not need and have given up without even noticing: massages, manicures, pedicures, highlights, dinners out, new winter boots, another pair of running shorts, extra minutes on my phone, movies in theater, drinks at the bar, coffees, and song downloads… to name a few- and without these things, we’ve kept up with the medical bills and everyday life. Perhaps, we will be able to get out more often, and, more-so, we will have the funds to allow Addie to have the opportunity to go to many of the local and national LPA events, and have a few custom things for her in our home.

I hope to get my MFA, and to be able to send Addie and our future child(ren) to college, to provide them with their first cars, and pay for their weddings- my dream of flying those friendly skies as a career have been replaced with different dreams, and one of the biggest already being fulfilled: becoming a(ddie’s) mom.

When I grow up, I hope to be… me.