My head goes kinda crazy sometimes

Strange how mindsets and futuristic visions evolve and adapt based on each moment of experience and choice.

Perhaps I'm more aware of stepping outside of the lines, so to speak, since I was raised in an environment where there were more defined lines of what you're "supposed" to do.

It was an ideal that you grow up, find a nice boy, marry, have kids, and then raise them conservatively. You don't smoke, drink, or listen to rock n' roll, you probably don't dance. This ideal was even more compounded by my church.

I never accepted it, being a little rebellious crazy kid from about the age of 5 and on. Perhaps it was being an oldest child thing, or just my strange little personality asserting itself. Still, that accepted ideal of what path my life should take, more or less, was there in the back of my head, some elusive blueprint of "that it should be like."

So I gradually made definite choices to follow my own heart and define the beliefs that guided me. Despite the exhausting friction between parents and oldest child, despite almost controlling concern and judgement, despite being told I was wrong...maybe not despite, but because, I grew and thought and decided and walked my path. Happily, I've ended up secure, optimistic, and tolerant. I know that's a blessing.

No one ever finds the ideal they thought they would. Instead we adapt and often stumble across what our hearts truly desire.

Then we look back on that once perfect dream of how our existence would play out, and it's something so foreign and ridiculous.

I wouldn't trade my life today or who I am to have that childhood ideal guaranteed to me. I'm ridiculously happy and at peace, and more well-rounded than many people are. I'm happy in my little life that contains a boy named Kyle, hikes, philosophy, beer and wine, books, music of all types, a cussword here and there, education, and my personal reverence for my God. And as long as my soul is happy and peaceful, I'll stay just how I am!