“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

A good friend (love you BH2) put this on her Facebook page the other day, and you may have seen it shared on mine.  Never were truer words spoken.  I had a plan.  But once the Australian dumped me and I realized I wasn’t going to marry my college sweetheart, another plan went into motion.  I was going to go to grad school and have a CAREER, by God.   I often joke about the fact that I went through my midlife crisis at 26, when off to Texas I went.  But what you might not have known is that deep in my heart and mind, I still had a back up:  I’d get married in time to have two kids, one at 36 and one at 38.  With my 39^th birthday not too many months off, it looks like this plan is shot to hell, as well.

Which I’m surprisingly OK with.  Many of you know that 2010 was a shit year for the Muehlenbruch clan.  I don’t want to bring any of you to tears, but losing a parent kind of makes you take stock of things.  I made some changes on the personal front, and others fell into place.  My sister and I vowed that 2011 was going to be our year.  She got a big promotion with her company in March, and shortly after, I got this move.  And as I said in my last post, I know it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be.

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to Puyallup for my 20 Year High School Reunion.   I’m still at a loss as to how that happened.  I remember when my parents went to my mom’s 20 Year – I was 14, for heaven’s sake.  She seemed so old to me then, how could I possibly be that age?  I remember her telling me that the 10 Year was nothing but an extension of high school – everyone is still in their cliques and trying to show off all they’ve done, which it was. But she told me by the 20 Year people were over it.  And so I was really excited for the reunion.  A woman whom I was really good friends with in junior high, before we drifted apart in high school, had put on her Facebook page something to the effect of, “I look forward to seeing everyone and watching the cliques crumble like the Berlin Wall.” (Appropriate, since we were in high school when that happened.) 

I tell you all this because I’m not sure there’s a better judge of how comfortable you are with where you are in life than having to attend your 20 Year Reunion.  And I can say with total confidence, I honestly didn’t give a SHIT what anyone thought.  The best part of the night?   Seeing the people who obviously felt the exact same way.

Granted, I think I’ve done well for myself.  I have a great career with a company I’m proud to say that I work for.  I’m spending the next three years in an arrangement some people will only ever dream of; but we all judge success differently.  I am 100 percent certain that there were people at my reunion who measure success by marriage and family, and in their eyes I’ve failed miserably.  And that's OK – to each their own.

Because I'm pretty excited about the next three years.  It finally feels like I am settling in for the duration.  Going back and forth from a hotel never feels like home, and even once I moved into my place, I had a trip planned every few weeks, between Vegas the end of August and Puyallup the end of September.  Now that all that is behind me this has finally started to feel permanent.  Over the last week, I've randomly run into people I know around my neighborhood.  I see tourists on the street wandering aimlessly, probably looking for somewhere to eat (my 'hood is surprisingly 'chain' free) and I no longer feel like one of them.  I'm ever so slightly more comfortable attempting to speak Spanish.  All of these things - combined with the fact that my insta-friend is finally here permanently – have me excited about seeing all that Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean, for that matter, have to offer.  Stay tuned!