{Re} Purposed

Ahem.

{I could bore you with all the excuses for not blogging for two years. But I'm not going to. So let's proceed...}

It's been graduation announcement-palooza around here, and I recently picked up this crazy re-purposing bug, and it's all got me thinking...

It's been thirteen years since I graduated from high school--since I gave some elaborate response when asked where I'd be in ten years. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I'll tell you what, I'm pretty sure it had nothing in common with where I actually am now.

Like--at all.

What I had pictured for my body, my family, my surroundings, my daily tasks, my purpose in general - not the same.

I had planned to continue in the path I'd always been on, to keep being the person I was then. Or at least some version of that.

Turns out I've been stretched in just about every direction except that one. And you know what? I think I'm better off for it. I know I'm better off for it, actually.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a serious work in progress, very much in the becoming stage of something--everything. But holy smokes, I feel like I've earned a few of the recently-more-obvious lines in my face, and the silver hairs showing up in my once all-brown locks.  I feel like there's more depth to me, and that I have a little more strength to face whatever's next--knock on wood.

For reals--knock on wood for me.

See these people? (Well, creatures--Hudson thinks he's a person, but he's a creature.)

 They're my life. My WHOLE life. And none of them came into it the way I thought they would. But I'm sure glad they did. I'm crazy about them.

That picture? It's outside my home in Chubbuck where I never wanted to live. That's my dog who ended up being my first child; my daughter who arrived 5 years later than I wanted her too; my husband who I sealed the deal with way later and in crazier circumstances than I had imagined; and my sweet son whom I adore, who we adopted and who, I'd thought, I'd be giving birth to.

The person I was 13 years ago was a good person, I had friends, I think I was decent. I tried to do what I thought I should--what I thought I was meant to.

But I'm not her now.

I've been sanded around the edges a bit, I've been roughed up a little, I've got some scars and crows feet and stretch marks. And I'm still me deep down, at the core, but I'm serving a different purpose now.

A gentle carpenter saw what I was and accepted it, but realized that if I could change, I could be something more, something a little different. He's sanded down the frills and finish and polish, and replaced them with others.

And I'm so grateful. Glad I was what I was, but glad to be becoming something other than my limited imagination had planned.

Happy I'm being re-purposed.