Only Time Will Tell If It Was Time Well Spent

This is not meant to be an excuse for my last blog, but more of a reason behind my feelings held within said blog.  This may sound whiny at times and bragy at others but it is just the stream of consciousness writing that is the way my brain works and what goes through it almost on a daily basis...  Welcome to my mind...  Maybe this is why I like to keep busy with work when I can, not giving my mind time to think about it...

Some may say that I am over thinking things and that everything will happen as it should.  It is on God's timetable not my own.  I can understand this but I am just looking at the numbers...

At this point in my life I do not have a Girlfriend, no real prospects, and not in a very stable job situation so if I were to have a prospect I would not feel super-comfortable thinking about starting a family with her.

Sometimes I wonder if I have done something wrong with my life.  What have I accomplished?  Did I make a wrong turn?  Did I make a wrong choice?  (Yes, everything we do and every choice that we make, good and bad, develops us into who we are.)  What if I had made a different choice ten years ago, twenty?  What would be happening in my life right now?  Would I be taking a kid to daycare or fearing them becoming a teen in a couple of years?  Your basic butterfly effect...

I see friends from high school and college who have gotten married and have a family and are able to watch them grow up.  I see friends who are a good decade younger than myself in the same scenario.  In theory they are in a stable enough job in which they can afford this.  (I know I know, things can always be tight and money does not buy happiness.  It does not buy happiness but it can make for a less stressful time of things.) Many will also tell you that you will never be completely stable financially, there will always be another bill, another expense.  You will not always be ready for all of them.

What have I done with my life?

When I really look at it, I have done a lot of things that many people my age have not had the opportunity to do, if they will ever have the chance.

One of the first things is that I was able to go to college.  Some of my cousins have attended but I am the first in my immediate family to get a degree.

The major thing that I have been able to experience was travel.  I worked on Celebrity Cruise lines for several years and toured all over the Caribbean, Alaska and Europe.  Not many can check off; Russia, France, Egypt, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Turkey,
Greece, Spain, Ireland, Aruba, Acapulco, St. Marteen, Jamaica,  traversing the Panama Canal seeing the calving of a glacier on their list (bucket or otherwise).

(I almost didn't make it back to the ship in France and Alaska, I tried to walk under it in Amsterdam, and got my pocket picked in Russia but those are stories for another time...)

Guggenheim Museum, NY NY

Flam, Norway

Helsinki Cathedral - Helsinki, Finland

Hubbard Glacier, AK

St. Basil's - Moscow, Russia

Church in Honor of Mary Magdalene - Jeruselem

The Little Mermaid - Copenhagen, Denmark

Church of the Spilt Blood - St. Petersburg, Russia

Barbados

Kremlin - Moscow, Russia

The Louvre - Paris, France (HUGE!!! Wish I could put up a panoramic shot...)

The Sphinx and Giza Pyramids
Sphinx was much smaller than it appears in pictures

My Camel and more Pyramids

Again, not trying to brag, just give you a better idea of where I am coming from.

So I have done some stuff with my life so far.  However, there is so many more things that I want to do...  Having a family and passing on the family name is the main thing.

IF... TOMORROW...  I had a good job, a great girlfriend that I could see myself falling in love with and growing old with, and married her the next day, had a baby in the next nine months (preferably in that order)...  I would be about 54 years old when that first child graduated from high school...  This is all assuming I get married and get right into the baby making next week...  Not likely to happen, so that is just pushing that age further and further along.  Good thing men don't really have that whole biological clock thing going on for them...

This is all considering one kid.  The way my mind is working I need at least two...  One of each...
I would like a boy for my own desire to pass along the family name.  It is pretty much up to me if decades from now there are to be any 'Berry's' running around in shorts in the middle of winter.
I need to have a little girl for my Mom...  She desperately wants a granddaughter.  My sister has had three boys.  Every time my Mom sees a little girl or a little girls outfit or little girl shoes, she says that she wants a little girl to dress up, she only has grandsons...  Every now and then she mentions that it is up to me...  No pressure though... :-)
I do know Mom just wants me to be happy with whatever happens in my life...

I truly believe that age is a state of mind.  You are only as old as you feel.  I don't feel like I am 36.  Most people when they meet me do not realize that I am as old as I am.  Often, people think I am a good ten years younger than I am.  I guess that is a good thing but it does not change the fact that, the way things are going, I will be in my 60's when my kid(s) are graduating high school, not to mention college and urging my kids to get to having kids so I can enjoy the my grandchildren...

Phew...  You are now free to exit the craziness of my mind and proceed with your, hopefully, saner life.

Black Sand Beach - Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Life was so simple back then...

Although this day should be remembered for Martin Luther King, for the most part that is not what it means to many people.  To most it means a holiday from work or from school.

I am no different.

This day began having more significance for me in college.  Specifically sophomore year.  Before this it was a day off from school, cool but that was about the extent of it.

My sophomore year, I had turned 21.  I could drink without fear of arrest.  This meant it was an extra day to have parties.  Usually we bumped it up to begin the weekend on Thursday and went on through Sunday night and recovering on Monday.

Thinking about this day, and what it had meant in college, made me miss college.  Some say that high school was the best time of their life, they had a great time.  I hated high school, for the most part I did not have a good time, I could not wait for the day, the week, the year, the four years to end.

College was a whole different story.  The first semester was a rough one being away from home for the first time.  It was pretty lonely.  Although I knew that I was going to be a theatre major, it was a little tough to get 'in' to the group until I began working in the scene shop and working on shows.  (The first show was a hold over from the summer season so cast and crew was already assigned.)

Around October, I moved to a different dorm (closer to the theatre), and was getting involved more and it was great.  My room mate typically did not see me from morning until late at night, maybe catch a glimpse of me rushing in to change clothes before rehearsal.

Sophomore year I was living with Courtney and we had a good time.  We did a lot of\ stupid things, some minor injuries, but nothing serious. So all was good.

She annoyed Courtney...

I had to help...

 

Where else but college do you decorate with beer cans?

There was a connection between us, we were all in this thing together.

Some left too soon...

Finally graduation day came.  I knew that it possibly be the last time that I would see a lot of these people.  I have been able to see some of them periodically, we had a wonderful reunion of the theatre alumni and we were able to catch up.  I did a couple of visits after I had graduated to visit some people but that is about it.  For the most part many of the people that were such a big part of my life are not in it any more.  Perhaps I can blame myself for this as I moved out of state and ended up on a cruise ship for many years so I was out of the country but it is still unfortunate.

I often think of the Avenue Q song and think out nice it would be to go back to college.  I would have fewer worries (or less important in the long run).  I would not be timing deposits and checks written to make sure funds would be there for the bill.  I would not be wondering where the next car payment would be coming from.  And be anxiously awaiting replies to sent resumes and interviews when they do happen.            

All that being said, IF I did go back to college, would it be the same.  Would I have the same experiences or would my classmates be too different being from a different generation?

Probably not...

Were my experiences the way they were only because of the time that I was there and the people that I was there with?                              

Probably...

Thanks Dr. King for all that you did but I don't remember what you did on your day but my days in college.