Milestones

My niece got married last weekend. She was a radiant, happy, lovely bride. If I look at my own wedding photos, I’m radiant and happy too—it was one of the first milestones in my life.

In a few days I’ll turn 49. This fact was emphasized by how LOUD the music was at my niece’s wedding and how fast my dancing energy waned. I had unlimited energy at my own wedding, certainly!

My first milestone occurred on the day I graduated from college. The world was before me: I was young, talented, and barring my student loan debt, no obstacles blocked me from doing anything I wanted to do. Three years later I got married. Now WE could do anything we wanted to do, together. Four years after that I had my first baby: Milestones don’t get much more important or thrilling.

In 1992, Tom Hanks starred in a movie about the women’s baseball teams during World War Two, called A League of Their Own. At the end, one character gives up her career to be a homemaker and her younger sister continues to play baseball. I watched that movie with a baby in my arms and a preschooler asleep upstairs, and thought: My life is over. It’s a hamster wheel of diapers, laundry, work—lather, rinse, repeat. I’ll never accomplish anything I dreamed of at those milestones.

That day I chose not to let those dreams slip away. Not to see myself only as mom/homemaker/Day Job grunt. I had dreams once. I had ambition, and energy, and goals. I reread letters from high school and college friends. We were all in theater or music or the arts, and all but one of our group had chosen the life of the audience rather than the one on stage.

It took many years to make my dream a reality. Being a stubborn broad helped.

How many of us reached that nadir but didn’t give in? The fact that we’re all on this blog is proof of our stubbornness. What was your milestone? What triggered your compulsion to grab your dreams with both hands and drag them into reality?