When I was Twelve

When I was twelve I wanted a white poufy dress and flowers galore.  I wanted a wedding.
Being a tomboy I wasn't ever the one sitting around picking out wedding colors and floral arrangements and naming all my future kids. But if I thought about it, I knew one day, that the traditional wedding was something I'd get to enjoy. Tomboys can still be Daddy's girls - you look forward to the walking down the aisle moment.

When I was sixteen I wanted kids.
I didn't know how many or when, but similar to the twelve year old, I saw that happening. The last two weeks of my sixteenth year, after dozens of trips to the ER, years of visits to the OB/GYN and a second, 7 hour surgery at Walter Reed, I found out that was not a certainty I could be given. "We'll talk about it when you get to that stage in life" was the answer I'd been left with. I spent the next ten years convincing myself kids weren't necessary for my happiness. If I held onto that dream, it was likely that I would try and fail and putting motherhood on a pedestal seemed like a way to get really hurt down the line.

When I was twenty-two I wanted something small and intimate. I wanted a marriage.
I imagined my future husband and I would be fronting most of the expense and I'd realized watching others marry that the wedding business was a nightmare of dollar signs and more choices than you could imagine. A rustic-chic celebration of hopes and futures with my complement, my partner, my other half. I was still waiting for him.

When I was twenty-six I'd found him and I wanted a union with my best friend.
I wanted to head to Thailand for two weeks to celebrate us, to give us both a much-needed break from life and stress and a temporary escape from all things bearing down. Eloping was the perfect way to wrap up the commitment we'd make and the hard work we'd already put in. It was the icing on the cake - letting him surf as much as he wanted and sit relaxed on a beach; it was me eating as many noodles as I could and trekking into the jungle for adventure and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Memories we'd review with smiles on our faces decades from that time. It wasn't about show, it wasn't about anyone else's opinions. It was a $200 lace dress, a pair of Toms, and my soulmate. It was the start of trying for babies, even if I failed. It was scary as shit, but He was worth it.

A month and a day before the end of my twenty-sixth year, my most mature vision of committed love was robbed right out of my hands. Violently. An intense weekend of depression visited my kind, intelligent, compassionate, sacrificial, Life-of-the-Party fiance and suicide stole My Every Day right out from under me. He was mine to protect and to care for; he was mine to support and love; but he was gone.

Eight months and 2 days after my soul was crushed, the best idea of the direction I should be taking rests on a new philosophy: not everyone gets Happily Ever After.

What a bullshit lesson. Sometimes it's innocent children, 8 years old, that life teaches that to; others are slammed with that reality at 26 and some wander through life eternally oblivious to this reality. They'll quip "life's not fair" while having never experienced what that actually looks like. I think the most likelihood of surviving this nightmare that I wake up to will only happen if I can stop trying to attain "Happily Ever After". 

I don't like this lesson, I don't want it, I hate it. But it feels like the lesson Life is trying to teach me.