I thought I knew me didn't you?

I tell my kids, after I do goofy things like the Swim from Alcatraz, that I do this stuff because I want to be an interesting grandmother to their kids someday.  None of this, "hand Nanny that skein of yarn please," for me. But when I take time and think about it, this isn't where I'd thought I'd be someday.  Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but I wonder how many people sit back, and think, "Dayum!  I am exactly where I imagined myself to be at this stage of my life".

If you knew me when I was little and round, I wanted to be a mommy and a doctor.  Only kid on the block that had a pen pal relationship with Dr. Michael DeBakey.  Look him up if you don't know who he is, but he was my hero.  Oh I wanted to be a heart surgeon, or brain surgeon, or some kind of doctor, I still do.  But here I am surrounded by all things hockey and ice in the most unlikely of places for it too.  Like I said, not necessarily bad, but definitely not what I had planned.

Did I imagine myself marrying as young as I did, meeting my husband as unconventionally as I did, surrendering to love at first sight like I did?  No.  Actually when my best friends and I imagined the marriage scenario for all of us I was the one voted least likely to be married first.  They would be married way before me.  I'd be this fabulous woman, with her equally fabulous career, jetting in to see my friends and their families.  That amazingly successful Aunt Danielle with this amazingly enviable life.  Yep, as off base as I could get there once again.  Married at 22, started my family at 24. My amazingly different life from what we all imagined it to be is, well, amazing to them and me when I think about it.

When I lost my vision in my right eye almost 20 years ago, I would never have imagined all that came next.  A generic trip to the eye doctor yielded some fairly un-generic news and altered my perfectly generic life forever.  There's nothing like calling the doctor for your test results and being told you need to come into the office ASAP to get them.  There's nothing like hearing you have a potentially devastating neurological disorder, nothing like trying to reorder your life and priorities, scrambling like a mad woman trying to grab on to some semblance of order.  Nothing like thumbing your nose at your prognosis for as long as you can gleefully checking things off your bucket list along the way, like marathons, Ironmans, fondos, Swims from Alcatraz....

Four kids really?  What am I a clown car creating kids?  I'm not necessarily as bad as that Dugger woman with her uterus that is begging for retirement at this point, but 4 is almost a litter by my family's standards and all four of the same sex?  Well like my father said not every one can produce kids with plumbing on the outside Dee!  So my husband is truly the king in this castle, a Sultan with his very own harem of adoring females.

Owner of three businesses that have nothing to do with anything I dreamed about being?  Although I have to admit the Carvel is pretty sweet, both literally and figuratively.  Anyone who grew up in NY knows just how awesome Fudgie the Whale and Cookiepus are.  Now I can have them and Cinnabons any time my black heart desires. I feel like a crack dealer pedaling such food stuffs, but I can always soothe my guilt with a Thin Mint Dasher and forget about it.

Seriously doing the bookkeeping at one of our locations, payroll for the 2 others?  Please, numbers are my nemesis, we've been at odds for awhile now.  They bore me, they need to be more pink or purple,  have some ra-ta-tat-tat-tat, ta-pocketa, pocketa....But alas, they are woefully deficient of anything that interests me, so here I sit surrounded by all things numbers in my every day job.  The irony is staggering.

It's funny how life works out isn't it?

So no, I suppose I'm not where I'd thought I'd be.  No, not mending hearts or brains.  No, not with a fabulously enviable life that has other women drooling as far as I know unless they envy the craziness that is my home.  The filled with kids coming and going, feeding the masses, dealing with the noisiness that is never ending, breaking up bickering matches, doing loads of laundry that I have to scale like Mount Everest, chasing after two dogs, 5 kids, a husband and 3 businesses and living at my supermarket life that is most undeniably mine.

But it is a wonderful life I have as I sit and think about everything I have been graced with.  I may not be what I thought I might someday, but I am surrounded by all the people I love. It is a wonderful life indeed, and I didn't need a Clarence to show me.  Nope, not a failure at all, no woman can be a failure surrounded by family and friends.  Well I need to run and answer the door, I believe I hear a bell is ringing....