Sometimes I just have to wonder... how did I end up here...

I found this post in my drafts....I wrote it months ago and just found it in my drafts folder and decided to finally post it....

So I apparently have a lot of friends with birthdays this weekend. As is appropriate, there was some birthday partying tonight. Being a good friend, I attended and bought the birthday boy and girl some shots. And made my other birthday friend a cake. This post won't have any pictures that are really relevant. So I will post some random ones from my life recently. Anyway, getting to the point, I was talking to one of my friends tonight when she said, as she often does, something to the effect of how insanely lucky she is to have such an awesome family, friends, career, etc. and how she never could have planned it any better if she had tried. 

Pokemon cake!! It was absolutely 105% properly appreciated by the recipient :D

Naturally, this statement always makes me think. She also went a little further and talked about some things happening at work that it was just interesting how all the pieces had fallen into place to bring her to where she is now. I won't go into the details of her story, but I will go into some with mine.

That said, I totally agree with what she is saying. I mean, I am at a slightly different place in my life than she is but I am happy. Almost too happy. It is kind of a weird feeling. I mean, of course I have bad days, but they pass. And they really aren't that bad. Something dumb happens and it annoys me and I get over it. The part that interests me so much is how I got here. Because I sure didn't plan it. Looking back, it is a random series of events that has brought me to this point. If you had told me who I would be and what I would be doing and who I would be doing it with two years ago, I probably would have laughed at you. If you had told me that 5 years ago, I probably wouldn't have believed you. 8 years ago... well, there is no way i would have believed that that would be me in the future.

Anyway, so 8 years ago  I was in highschool, living in Alabama and had no idea what I was going to do with my life. (not that I know that now...) I was in band and played soccer and had some friends and that was my life. Oh, I had my first job, as a lifeguard. Not a career but I was making money. My life plan was to graduate and go to college, probably down in the South with all my friends. Anyway, along came life and things outside of my control changed my perfect little plan. 6 years ago, I end up in Alaska, still in highschool. The soccer team sucks, the band is good but just isn't the same, and I have no friends. I manage to find a job working in retail. Good experience but still not a career... at least I am making money. Seeing a pattern here???  All I want to do is go back to what I know. I am completely opposed to change and terribly unhappy with life in general. My perfect little plan has been ruined!

Anyway, fast forward a little more. I go to college, graduate, and things start to get better. I meet people, I get progressively better jobs, I start to find new things that I love to do. I learn to ski, dirt bike, weld, etc. My network of friends starts to grow. I meet people who know people that I know. I actually start to find some really good friends. Anyway, enough of my life story. Just for the background of where this is all coming from.

Anyway, to the topic. I was thinking on my drive home from the bar (I wasn't drinking. I don't drink and drive) how I got here. I am happy with who I am and honestly don't care what other people think. If they don't like me, that's their problem. I will seriously inform someone I just met "oh, I am pretty cool. We should be friends". And if they don't want to be then whatever. My self esteem is frighteningly high. I push my limits outside of my comfort zone because I like to. It is challenging and fun. I used to be too scared to do that. I just wonder where this came from. 2 years ago, I was not like this at all. I was worried about why so and so didn't like me. In general, I was just worried about the wrong things.

I like to think about things like this. So I thought about this for a while. What happened to me?  Well there was this crazy series of events that happened. I learned things, I met people, I experienced things. And I made decisions based off of what happened to me. I let them change me for the better. (I think) I stopped being so worried about my plan and my destination and started looking at the journey and even looking for the side tracks that may not take me where I planed to go when I planned to go but might still get me somewhere worth going. I started looking for and even making opportunities that were not part of my plan at all.

I mean, I have always been very career and money oriented my whole life. I don't think that money is the most important thing in life but I have come to the conclusion that the lack of money causes a lot of problems. Therefore, a career and money making means have always been very important to me. So what did I do when I graduate from college? I took a low paying job that I like waking up and going to more days than not and allowed me to travel (and go way into debt) for three months. I packed up my truck and took a 13,000 mile road trip.  Oh, by myself.  Totally not planned. I mean I could have graduated and looked for and possibly gotten a much higher paying career fast track job. If you had told me I was going to do that two years ago I would have laughed at you and told you no way in hell am I doing that. It was scary. Really scary. But I am sure glad I did it.

Anyway, just some more random, slightly disconnected thoughts from my brain :)