What would she say to me? Would she be proud of me? Would she be disappointed?

I’m turning 25 on the 30th. Pretty sure, my 10 year old self would be disappointed in me. I think she wanted to be a marine biologist because she loved the sea so much. While also being married with two kids because my mother was married with a kid at 25. She definitely believed that I would have it all figured out.

But that’s the thing about being 10. You have this innocent outlook on life. Life is simple and easy. You have no idea what life has in store for you. Because going to school was fun and easy. Eating food was easy. Sleeping was easy. Writing was easy. Now, it is so much more complicated. It doesn’t have to be but it is.

At almost 25, I have a degree. Not in marine biology but creative writing. I’m not married with kids but I’m in a wonderful relationship with a boy and we have a beautiful dog named Pumpkin. I don’t have my own house because I still live with my mom. We don’t live in the town I grew up in, we’re in a town two hours away from that one. Life now is, definitely, not at all what I thought it was going to be.

Even though my 10 year old self would be disappointed, my present self is not. Do I wish I could be a successful writer right now? Most definitely yes. But I wouldn’t change it. Oddly enough, I wouldn’t.

My 10 year old self hasn’t gone through what I have gone through so she wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t understand why my first dog is gone and why I have a different one now. She wouldn’t understand why I wasn’t more “independent”. Or why, I haven’t had kids yet.

If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change it. As cheesy as this is going to sound, I’m gonna say it anyways. I love living with my mom. Yes, it might be a slight codependency issue but I love it. I’m not a child anymore. We work together to make the house nicer and make the grocery list together. It isn’t this parent to child thing anymore. As much as I would like to be married, I know that’s not possible right now. My boyfriend and I are still working on our careers, trying to find ourselves. We can’t afford to support ourselves let alone each other.

As for kids, well that’s still up in the air. Because when my first dog, Tink, died. I was heartbroken and my mental state went way down. I vowed, at that point, to never have kids. If I wasn’t there for my dog then how could I take care of kids? That idea has changed. I’ve worked with young kids now, changing diapers and feeding them. I’ve connected to them in a way I never thought was possible.

Now, I have Pumpkin. My second dog. God, I love her. As much as I would love to have Tink back, I love Pumpkin. She saved me from the grief of Tink, bringing color back into my life. I love her and care for her so much more than Tink. Hard to admit but true. I couldn’t go back and change my life, knowing that I possible might not have her in my life.

Because as much as I would have liked for my life to be a lot different, I like how it is right now. And, I can’t change the past. I can’t change what has already been done. I can just keep moving forward.