When Ashlyn was young and I was too I had plans to “fix” things. I had never known anything other than a family with two parents and two brothers, each of us spaced neatly three years apart. At night, after putting her to bed and finishing my homework, I would calculate the time I needed to fall in love, get married and have more children before Ashlyn knew any different. These magical plans would fall into place before I finished college and Ashlyn would have two parents and siblings almost as close in age as my own.
As Ashlyn got older and older, my plan stretched and changed and slowly dissolved with the naivete of my early twenties. I decided that single parenthood might suit me just fine and pictured us as old ladies rocking together on the porch someday, we were only 17 years apart after all.
I will spare you the recounting of my entire life story because I’ve already told it here in mismatched shapes. Nothing happened the way I thought it would. I lived with my parents until I finished college and bought my grandparents’ home and two years of fertility treatments into my marriage, gave Ashlyn her first three siblings, when she was 12.
Today McKenna and I spent the afternoon watching Ashlyn play basketball. She didn’t cry during the first game but she cried during the second. I’m not sure why but this happens every game. Something about the activity and the excitement and the noise overwhelm her every time. I watched her coach comfort her from afar because I’m not allowed to run across the court and someone asked if she was my sister. Again.
McKenna didn’t blink at the show of emotion or the car ride home that included an extra passenger who happens to be a boy whose face turns a little pink when he talks to her sister.
There is a pure, blind innocence that comes with being young and trying to imagine your way through what life will look like. We don’t lay on a twin mattress after a college final and dream of years of single motherhood and an autism diagnosis and the loss of a child. We don’t dream of how good life can be despite these things either.
Days are messy and nights are without sleep and people cry over things we can’t fix. Our best laid plans tip over and we step on them on our way to reality. Reality isn’t something we could have dreamt because we didn’t realize that different was going to be perfectly okay.
If I could go back and tell that dreamy girl her life wasn’t going to be anything like she had carefully planned, I would give my time-traveling ticket to someone else. I couldn’t possibly explain how things would turn out and that most days she would love them anyway.
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And for a big, exciting piece of reality… meet the first ever Metro Detroit cast of Listen To Your Mother!
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Robbie says
I love this. I remember the life I thought I wanted but I cannot imagine living anything but this one.
Dried-on Milk says
Oh you just hit me right in the heart. Beautifully written and so incredibly true. **thinking to myself how to tell my 5.5 year old the same thing…** 🙂
Jessica says
Thank you. I feel the same, I wish there were a way to teach my kids this same lesson. Although I have a feeling they will have to learn it the same way we did.
Pattie says
You put the truth so well! Sometimes I wonder what my life, or any of our lives, would really be like if we had gotten what we thought we wanted. I do know this, if I had gotten the first boy I fell in love to marry me like I thought I wanted I would not have a life anything close to the one I have now. And I wouldn’t trade what I have for anything that I see other people having. The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.
Jessica says
It is funny to think back to our past and wonder how things would have been if it had all happened differently. Strange to think we could be living completely different lives.
Stacey says
So true! My life is nothing like my best laid plans. And for that, I am so thankful! Beautiful post!
Jessica says
Thank you Stacey! Did you always think you would have a big family? I had always hoped to but wasn’t sure exactly how many.
Stacey says
I didn’t want a big family when I was young. I thought being a SAHM seemed awfully boring. I wanted 2 or 3 kiddos and I wanted to work. I never in a million years planned on having 7!
Mandy says
I sometimes find myself in that dreamy space sometimes still. Even though I know from experience life has a habit of not turning out the way I think it will. And I still wish for a crystal ball – especially as I navigate single motherhood and fret over the decisions I make. But, that being said, I know that I’m blessed in my life and everything happening is going to make me a stronger, better person in the future.
Jessica says
You’ve had so many changes over the last few years, I know your life is so much different than you had thought it would be but you’ve handled it all so well and are such a strong mama!
Sherri says
Love this, my friend…the best laid plans, right? Many times the life we wind up with is the life we needed, not the one we imagined.
And congrats on casting!
Jessica says
Thanks, casting was difficult but such an amazing process. And yes, if someone had told me that this was the life I needed before it all unfolded I would have never believed them.
Kathy at kissing the frog says
Our best laid plans. . .It would be nice to get back all those hours spent dreaming of the perfect life, wouldn’t it? I’m right there with you.
Jessica says
Yes, especially now, I would take those extra hours of sitting still in my day at any time.
Cheryn @ INSPIREDbyCher says
How true is this? If we really, really knew what our futures held, we probably could never muster up enough strength and courage to go forward and face it/ deal with it (we’d run a mile!), just goes to show how much stronger we get as we go through life and look back on the path we’ve trodden on. Stumbled across your blog and absolutely love it. You’ll be seeing more of me round here 😉
Jessica says
So well said Cheryn. I could have never imagined this life, or the fact that I would be able to get through it ;). Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment.
Tamara says
I get that. Nothing like I imagined, but most days I love it anyway. Or maybe even more.
Still sad I can’t fly. I didn’t give up that dream until high school or so.
This is SO lovely!
Jessi C says
My life hasn’t turned out anything as I thought it would. It changes daily from the agenda I’ve set out. I think I’m okay with this, lol.
Jessica says
That is true, my days never even turn out the way I planned let alone my whole future. Good thing I’m not an obsessive planner.
Shell says
Life never does turn out quite the way we planned it, does it? So important to embrace what is.
Carolyn Savage says
Oh my…I write about this all the time. I think about the crystal ball that I’m so glad I didn’t have access to. I think the naivete of our twenty something “plans” make us treasure our later-in-life triumphs—especially after having survived such unpredicted curveballs.
Jessica says
So true Carolyn, can you imagine if we had known what we would go through? We probably would have thought our crystal ball was broken.
Angela Youngblood says
This is so beautiful Jessica.
Sarah @ LeftBrainBuddha says
I love this! I know that my life right now is nothing like 15-years-ago me would have ever envisioned, but I do love it {if not every minute!} lovely lovely post.
Jessica says
It is hard to love every minute, I know I definitely don’t, but I definitely wouldn’t trade it. Thanks so much for reading!
Considerer says
Best laid plans. Seems like a theme I keep coming back to. This was beautiful.
I’d want to know not to hang onto those plans, if someone could time-travel back. But I wouldn’t want to know what the future held, no way.
Chris Carter says
So lovely. Every part of your story is beautiful. Nothing is by accident. And although our plans are NEVER what we dreamed them to be, we discover over and over again- they are perfectly ours afterall.