40 years

Yes, that's me!  (One of my favourite photos of myself, actually!) 

This photo was taken exactly 40 (FORTY!!) years ago tonight -- June 28, 1979. (Please don't tell me if you weren't even born then, lol.)  The occasion:  my high school graduation! Mine was the last class that "dressed up" in long dresses & suits for grad -- the next year, my sister's class voted to adopt caps & gowns. Long dresses were becoming passe even then, and it took some looking to find the perfect dress. (It HAD to be blue -- my favourite colour!)  Mom & I bought eventually found it at a mall in the city.  It cost $65 and was the most expensive dress I'd had to that point. You can't see all the details in this photo, but it was long, with a pleated skirt, & the bodice is sort of a lace-trimmed peplum. Those are blue ribbons tied at the shoulders, instead of spaghetti straps. I loved it.  Like my wedding dress, I only ever got to wear it that one time. (It is still hanging in a closet at Mom & Dad's house, lol.)

I look at that girl (who probably thought she was fat...!!) and I think about everything that has happened to her in the 40 years since then, things she had no idea were in her future. I  had a pretty good time in high school, but I was excited to start university & the next part of my life. Not sure now why I was in such a hurry, lol. I had my life all planned out:  I was going to university. I was going to be a journalist.  I was going to get married right after university, and have at least two and maybe four children. I would be a stay-at-home mom;  maybe work part-time when they got a bit older. We would live in a nice house in a leafy suburb in Winnipeg (or perhaps Calgary, or Edmonton -- the oil boom was in full swing in Alberta in those days, and many of my classmates were headed there). 

Things went according to plan, for a while -- until they didn't. And some of those unexpected twists & turns (stillbirth, infertility, childlessness, job loss) have been hard to accept. If you had told me back then that, 40 years later, I would be living in a condo (did we even know what condos were, back then??) in TORONTO (well, the Greater Toronto Area, anyway) with no children, I don't think I would have believed you.

I did go to journalism school and worked briefly as a reporter, before going to work for one of the banks my father had worked for -- something I never would have imagined (my sister -- who wound up working for the other bank dad worked for! -- & I LOATHED the bank when we were growing up -- it made us move every 3-6 years and took us away from all our friends). Corporate communications was just becoming a "thing" when I got into it, and in some ways, I am lucky that I got in on the ground floor. I had a well-paying career with a defined benefit pension for 28 years, even if they did usher me out the door unexpectedly. 

And yes, not having the children I wanted & expected to have has been difficult -- probably the hardest thing I've had to deal with. 

But still. Overall, it's been a good 40 years. My classmates just had a reunion. I didn't go, but I imagine most of them would agree that life isn't exactly what they thought it would be 40 years ago either.  Time goes by a lot faster than you think it will when you're 18 and 40 years seems like forever...!