Is your life how you thought it would be?

Meaning how you dreamed or wanted it to be?  This is sort of inspired by the "Can you love someone you havn't met?"  Both Jewlz and I commented about our 'fairy tale' coming true, and then the thread went onto a discussion of fairy tale vs real life, what is real love, different kinds of love, etc etc...

So for the record, I never had a wicked stepmother or stepsisters, tried on any glass slippers, didn't ride around in a pumpkin, sleep on a pea, no fairy godmother showed up, nor did any unicorns, horses, swans, fairies, birds, chipmunks, goblins, ogres, wolves, foxes, or snakes.

But I had a pretty rotten childhood (I wasn't physically abused so that's something!) and then my early adulthood wasn't much better due to all the heavy emotional baggage from childhood & so on & so forth.  So by the time I was - oh, 38-ish, I was that 'Dolly for Sue' from the Island of Misfit Toys...'I have no dreams left to dream'.  I had given up on marriage, and just decided to try & do more traveling (something I've always enjoyed more than just about anything else - well ok, there is food too!  )...which caused me to join an international penpals website - hoping to meet some folks abroad somewhere that I could become friends with & maybe go visit someday.

And then this nice man emailed me, and we started corresponding...  But by this time, if I was going to be involved with someone - well there is an Enzo Enzo song Juste Quelqu'un de Bien...which I think translates (roughly) - the jist of the song about just wanting a good/nice/kind person.

Now here I am - nearly 7 years after he started to write me, married to him & my life is everything I've ever wanted it to be & even some stuff I never thought about before but that just suits the person I am.  Everytime I look at my man (who is no Prince Charming, btw - he has 'warts' - lol!) - I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming.  I live in a beautiful place, we have a nice home (nothing extravagant), our life together is happy and content, I get to travel a lot - amazing after everything I went through that here I am where I always wanted to be (I don't mean England - I just mean the situation).  I feel like one of the luckiest people on the planet.  I have what I want, and I want what I have.    (I have great in-laws too, after a couple sets of previously quite bad ones.)  Okay now I'll shut up & wait for the other shoe to drop! 

What else could I wish for?

1) I would prefer to live somewhere warm & tropical/subtropical, but this has not been a dealbreaker, in the end.

2) I would prefer to be thin - but ha ha ha ha ha - THAT is never going to pass, although I'll keep trying to get healthier.

3) I wish I knew what I want to be when I grow up.

But that's about it.

How does your life compare to what you dreamed/wanted it to be?

PS - DH thinks I really ought to say that he is Prince Charming. 

I often joke that if I could go back in time and describe to my twenty-year-old self what life's like now, she'd tell me I was BSing.

I always thought my life path was going to be very straight-forward. I went to high school, then away to college, then got a good job, somewhere in there I figured I'd get married and buy a house or something and so on till death. It felt so depressing at the ripe old age of 21 to think that here was my life laid out before me. My transition from college to work wasn't very happy because of that cause I figured that this was it -- my life path was pretty much set.

Then a friend of mine got me interested in poker. And then I met FH on a poker forum, though it wasn't anything romatic at first (Date someone overseas? You must be kidding! Who'd be silly enough to do that?)  One night I got a bit too drunkie and just spilled my guts to him about how I hated my life and my job and felt trapped, etc etc etc. So he's like "So quit! Play poker for a living." I thought he was a nutjob, but it did spur me to change my job at least: new company -- same work. And it was just as bad. I was just as unhappy. So after two months, I quit and started playing for a living.

He supported me and helped me out and listened to me whine about bad beats alot. And one day he said that he was coming to AC for a tournament and would I mind putting him up for a night after he flew into NY? He was supposed to go to AC the next morning. Needless to say, he never went. Spent the entire week-and-a-half with me.

Came back a month later for another couple of weeks. And then two months later for about a month. That's when he proposed and that's how I am here. Living in London. Married to a poker player and playing poker myself. I don't think I ever imagined that's what my life was gonna be like.

It's not perfect (what is?) and I admit to sometime missing the stability that comes from a regular job and staying in the same place all the time and settling down, but I'd never trade this life for the one I used to have. I love and am loved, and our job, though occasionally boring and sometimes less-than-lucrative, gives us a lot of freedom too. So, my life is absolutely nothing like I thought it'd be and thank god for that!

My life is EXACTLY as I thought it would be in terms of happiness.  I've just always expected to be happy, and for most of the time, I have been happy enough...even though parts of my life haven't been all that happy!  Maybe happy is the wrong word and 'optimistic' is a better one - I'm an optimist.

However, if I went back to the age of 21 and looked at what I expected my life to be from then on, it hasn't turned out that way at all.  I thought I'd be married by 23 (not actually until I was 27), that I'd have 3 kids (I decided 2 was plenty!) and that I'd remain married to one person for life (the marriage last 20 years, it felt like life.   So the idea of divorce and remarriage wouldn't have even been on the radar screen back then...Nor would I have ever imagined being the one to move thousands of miles from my children (even though they were grown when I left, but which has been the most difficult part of my 'new life').

However, I am doing something I longed for at the age of 18...I'm living in England and as happy to be here as I could've imagined back then. 

I can't really remember what I used to think/wish my life would be like.
But about a month or so ago, as i was walking to work, I had this sudden  moment where i realised that I currently have almost everything I've ever wanted:   living on my own and doing my own thing in a pretty little flat, in the west end of Glasgow (my favourite part of my favourite city).  I've got a job that i enjoy and a car that runs.  I go to a really nice inclusive and non-judgemental church, I have a fun social/drinking life.  I'm healthy enough, and I'm madly in love with a smashing guy who loves me back.

The only thing i lack is money... i scrape by, but... i hate having to scrape!  Luckily my boyfriend is very generous and helps me, but... an extra £100 a month in my pay packet would probably bump my life from 'nearly there' to 'absolutely perfect'! 

My life in no way resembles any dreams or plans I had laid out for myself.  When I was 16 I pretty much had this idea I wanted to be a Secondary Education English Lit teacher.  I grew up having a couple of boyfriends but not very experienced in the relationship side of things.  I figured I would go away to a christian college, meet my future spouse, get my teaching degree, get married, a couple years later have a couple children (be the first grandchild to give my great grandparents their great-great grandchildren), be a stay at home wife and mother. When the kids were school age I would go back to teaching, etc.  Well, not a single one of those things happened.  Even the type of guy I thought I wanted to marry didn't turn out to be him (but I'm not complaining about that one.  My husband is wonderful, kind and sweet).

I started college going with the intent of majoring in English Lit.  Took all the Brit Lit classes and wondered what England was really like to produce such talented writers. While at college I needed a job and I ended up working with adults with disabilities.  Well, my part time job became my full job. I switched my major to Special Education and only ended up with an A.A. degree.  I never met my future spouse at college. Only had one guy interested in me and we went out for a couple weeks. I moved off campus, got wrapped up in full job.  Met some great friends along the way. I spent the next 8 year working with disabled adults.  Since I had eventually moved back, my parents started having marital problems and there was too much emotional baggage for me. A friend of mine had moved to Minnesota and convinced me to come up and work for the same organization she was at working with disabled adults. It was while there a friend I met online from England came over.  We sparked up a bit of a relationship. I decided to go see him in England. To make a long story short, while there we had an argument and he left me stranded in London. I then met this wonderful, decent British guy who helped me out of my predicament who I eventually married. 

What happened to all those plans I had for myself.  Not one of them happened. I never got my full teaching dgree. I never met my future spouse at college. I never had the first great-great grandchild. My sister beat me to that by getting pregnant while in high school. I didn't even get married until I was 28.  I love my husband and couldn't ask for a kinder man.  And still the aching desire to have children has not yet been fulfilled because I have fertility problems and the NHS has been crap in helping us! I've lived in Britian almost 6 years and we are dying to get back to the states. My husband doesn't want to live in Britian anymore but due to recent economic downturn we have to stay put for a while. I've gotten to travel and see so much of the world by living here that my family is highly envious of. The best thing in my life is my husband.

Its quite odd actually. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would live in the UK. Although, i do remember on 1 occasion argueing with my best friend when i was 7 because she wanted to go to school in NYC and i wanted to go to school in England (i think i had just seen a Hugh Grant movie and liked the accent) and since we were BEST friends would had to go to college in the same place and neither of us were willing to compromise... haha.

I did 3 years of Uni in NY and didnt quite like the way my life was going. I was seeing a deadbeat boyfriend without a job, i was drinking and partying WAY too much, my friends were proving to be rubbish and my family seemed to be falling apart.. so once i found out said deadbeat boyfriend was cheating on me and it was the last straw and i went to sleep one night, had a dream i studied abroad in Australia, woke up and thought 'why dont i do that'. It was 6am so i waited til 8am and went knocking on the door of the study abroad office and got some info. Australia proved to be far to expensive, so i decided to go to England and do some travelling around Europe while i was here.

I did have a funny feeling when i landed for the first time as a student that i would meet someone that would change my life and sure enough, about 3 weeks after i arrived i met my now DH.  I decided since it was my last year of Uni and i graduated anyways to *just stay for the summer*..... and im still here, 3 years later.

No, I didnt think i would marry at 22, and i think some of my friends think im crazy. And i definatly didnt think when i got married i would want to stay in England for the long run. We had plans to move to the USA but slowly I've started to fall in love with this country and now we're looking to buy our first house over here.

I've had a whirlwind of a life the past 5 years with moving over here and all but im soooo excited to finally be settling down and settling into my life. Finally have a good job (3rd time lucky, first two were rubbish), driving license, have a wonderful group of girl friends, buying a house.. and its really nice to finally put roots down somewhere and Im looking forward to the crazyness calming down for a bit. 

I never had plans. Or, if I did, they changed every week. I prefer the adventure of not knowing what tomorrow holds.

I never had plans. Or, if I did, they changed every week. I prefer the adventure of not knowing what tomorrow holds.

Yeap!!!  I did have a dream to come to Scotland, but it was supposed to be for grad school- instead it was for a job.  Getting married next year, who knows what the future brings.  I just try and enjoy life for what it is and see where it takes me around every corner. 

Great stories everyone, so nice to read. 

Hmm...no, my life is nothing like how I expected it to be even 4 or 5 years ago!

Barring the one boyfriend I had for less than a year in high school, I was very single (didn't date at all) for almost all of my teenage and young adult years up until the middle of my junior year of college, when I moved to the UK for study abroad (I was only supposed to be in Sheffield for one semester!) Then I had not one but two British boyfriends in quick succession (less than 2 months in between ending the first relationship and starting the second), and then ended up moving over here for grad school, which I would not have done had it not been for those relationships.

Before studying abroad (which ended up being one of those pivotal life-changing experiences, even though I totally wasn't expecting it!) I always thought that after college, I would move to Washington DC, rent a little apartment with a cat and work as a teacher or in educational policy.  Obviously, that didn't happen!  I am very glad I ended up moving to the UK, though and that the second relationship ended up sticking and I'm now happily married (although I think everyone who knew me, including myself, ended up being amazed that I got married at the youngish age of 23, after just a 2 year relationship.)  

Career wise, I'm not where I thought I'd be either- I decided against teaching after reflecting on it during my final years of college. And then after grad school I sort of fell in to the type of work I'm doing now (information/data analysis) through a temporary job, and I realised that I wouldn't get to do the type of work I thought I was training for (librarian) without a lot of sacrifice and patience due to the rather dismal job market for entry level librarians without much work experience in a library.  Also, 18 months of working temp or unstable jobs and then having DH get laid off last winter have also made me want to start my own business in the near future, something I'd never imagined doing before.

So yeah, my life is pretty unrecognisable from where I thought I'd be 5 years ago.  It's great in some ways, not so great in others...but I'm working to make things even better

Our stories sound very similar Springhaze! 

I'm loving reading all these stories as well.

I never had plans. Or, if I did, they changed every week. I prefer the adventure of not knowing what tomorrow holds.

Sounds a bit like me.  I've never really had a plan, I just take things as they come.  Occasionally I'll see something that looks like it might be interesting to do, so I give it a shot and see where it leads.  Thus far, it's working out really well.

In college I hung out with a lot of Air Force ROTC guys, and being an officer seemed like it would be interesting, so I joined up.  After 7 years of that it was time to do something else, so I worked for the Army (as a civilian) for a couple of years before answering an internet ad looking for video techs on cruise ships, which sounded really interesting.

I worked at sea for a few years (met the future DW - she's English) before moving to New York because a) I'd always wanted to live there and b) I could crash on my sister's couch while I got myself set up (she was thrilled - haha!).  While I was in NYC, the future DW came to stay and we started dating officially.  When the TV show I was working on got cancelled, we decided to move to the UK, and here we are.

No plan for any of that. 

I am not sure I really ever had a solid idea of what my future would be like.  It changed a lot.  I had a different answer for "what do you want to be when you grow up" every year of my childhood.  Sometimes it would change many times in one year.  I pretty much tried to do the opposite of my parents to avoid being stuck in the sort of life they lead, to varying success.

But if you showed 19 year old me my life now, she'd not be all that surprised (maybe about the particulars, but not the general direction), but she'd want to kick my butt for not finishing uni.

I never had a specific plan for what I wanted my life to be, but I did know exactly what I didn't want it to be.  I didn't want to get married at 22, settle down in the town where I grew up, get a boring job and have 3 kids before I was 30.  That is the life trajectory of the majority of people I went to high school with.  Recently, I've been getting back in touch with some of them on Facebook, and I've caught a bad case of the "whatifs" looking at pictures of their kids and hearing them talk about their houses (houses they own).  Children are still a few years down the road for me, and I doubt I'll ever own a house.  I have to keep reminding myself that what they have is what I didn't want, that instead I chose to travel and live in other countries, and try different jobs.  I treasure my husband and would never have met him if I hadn't chosen the path I did.  My experiences have shaped me, and I like who I am.  It's just hard not to wonder about the paths you didn't take. 

I never had plans. Or, if I did, they changed every week. I prefer the adventure of not knowing what tomorrow holds.

My only plan was to get the hell out of Pennsyltucky.  And I managed that.

This is MILES from anything I ever imagined for myself. I've always been a loner. Ambitious. Work obsessed. Likely to die an old maid and totally at peace with it. Happy with my job and my house and my friends and my independence. I always figured the story would end with me retiring, moving back to Tennessee and painting for fun.

And here I am, a full-time housewife in a 16th C farmhouse by the English Channel, happily married in the Church of England on Valentine's Day.

G'wan, pull the other one!