Reflecting & 26 on the 26th

It feels as though summer just started. I started back to work yesterday and I just don't feel prepared. The kids come back next week before Labor Day (for the first time ever in Peabody). There is no difference between last summer, when we returned to school on Monday, August 25th, and this summer, when we returned to school on Tuesday, August 25th, but it sure feels different. I don't know if it was the incessant rain and cold weather for the beginning of the summer or the fact that I spent so many of the truly nice days either waitressing or working on the house, but I don't feel like I'm ready to go back to work. I don't really have a choice and I'm going to do it regardless, but for the same token, I don't feel ready.
That being said, today I am 26. According to a friend, it is apparently a big deal when your age matches your day of birth. I guess being 26 on the 26th is a big deal; I didn't know. Regardless, turning 26 is no different to me than 25 or 24 except for that nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me of the life plan I so nicely set for myself. I always thought that everyone made these detailed life plans but as it turns out, they don't. I've spoken to quite a few friends who say they never planned ahead like I did. Who knew?
I think I had just begun high school and was dating my first serious boyfriend when I formulated my first plan. I was sure that said boyfriend was *The One* and so I planned my future according to our lives together. We would graduate from high school, I would go off to college, I would graduate from college and he would propose (probably within minutes from one another), we would buy a house together. I would be married by 23. My career as a second grade teacher would begin. By 26 or so, I would have my first child. By 28, my second. By 30, my kids would be potty-trained and I would be well on my way to living the comfortable, fabulous life I had planned. When said boyfriend broke my heart my sophomore year, I knew I had to change my plans.
I met Serious Boyfriend #2, found that he was actually *The One* and re-formulated my life plan. Not much changed. I decided that we'd probably get engaged while I was still in college (at Salem State), and that we'd be married quicker with kids quicker... maybe even three of them.. as long as I was done by 30 and ready to live my wonderful life. Somewhere along the lines, I realized that *The One* was not even close to what I wanted for the rest of my life. In fact, he was insane and psychotic and he had the makings of the antagonist of a fabulous Lifetime movie.
Senior year, I met *The [Third] One* and I knew that it was time. We planned our future (and he agreed to my crazy plan). His family loved me and accepted me as their own. We were set. My life plans changed and I left for school at Franklin Pierce College. I knew it would work out though. Everything was going according to my new and improved and possibly revised plan. Until *The[Third] One* was having a little too much fun without me.
Well, after that, I had to sort of put a hold on my life plans.... except that I always assumed they'd still work out. I actually thought that maybe things would work out with one of my past boyfriends so that, in the end, we would have the "high school sweethearts" story to tell our children (who, of course, would both be born before I was 30). As the commencement ceremony neared, I knew I was screwed. My life plans were not going to work out... or at least I wouldn't be marrying my high school or college sweethearts (Pfft... sweethearts! Haha). It was then that I decided to uproot my life and join Teach for America. Well, as it turns out, I had no leadership abilities whatsoever (or at least it didn't seem like I did in my application). My second idea was to join AmeriCorps. I applied all over New England and to South Carolina. Obviously South Carolina was meant to be because I got three job offers down there and none in New England. Off to South Carolina I went... sure that I would meet the man of my dreams, a true southern gentleman, probably in the military and wearing some sort of camouflage. We would fall deeply in love, get married, and again, I would be well on my way to children before thirty.
Had it not been for South Carolina, who knows if I ever would have met and fell in love with Matt. Lucky for me, I did choose to go to South Carolina and I did meet Matt and I did fall in love and I am now well on my way. I am 26 today, with a beautiful ring, a wonderfully loving fiance, and a house I love, but I still feel as though I'm behind the eight-ball. Maybe if I had never planned with such detail, I wouldn't feel that way. As make wedding plans for July 2011, I can't help but think that my kids will not be potty-trained by the time I'm 30... that they may not even be born yet... and I'm working to accept that. Luckily, the anxiety I normally feel when my plans don't work out hasn't set in yet (probably because I'm still hoping for twins 9 months after the honeymoon who are amazingly interested at potty-training at a young age!