MAKING PEACE

The Manic Monday theme for today is peace. To see all participants head over to see Mo at "It's a Blog Eat Blog World".

Obviously peace in all the war-torn regions of the world would be a more obvious and probably more relevant topic than what I am thinking about but that just isn’t where my mind is going right now. Therefore, here is my self-centered post about peace.

Tomorrow I am going to be 28. While I knew that last year was officially my entrance into the late-twenties, I feel I could still fudge my way into mid-twenties if I really wanted to. No more. That is ok though, I have made my peace.

Over the past week I have done a lot of thinking about direction and goals, as my regular readers know I am prone to do. I thought a lot about where I planned to be at this time in my life and where I am now. I worked hard on reconciling the two in my head and, I can confidently say, I am ok. In order to really be ok I had to examine a few stages of development of Natalie. I needed to look at where I thought I would be at this point in my life and see how things have changed.

Natalie Age 6- By age 28 I will have graduated from Medical School and finished my residency and be a practicing pediatric neurosurgeon with years of work under my belt (my sense of time was a bit off). I will have the perfect marriage, like my parents, and have 10 kids. I will live in a huge house on Summit Ave in St. Paul. I will have published many articles and cured some unknown neurological condition. I also will have skated in the Olympics.

Natalie Age 13- By age 28 I will be a pediatrician. I will have written the great American novel and be working on my second opus. I will have the perfect marriage and live in a huge house, very likely on Summit Ave in St. Paul. I will have three children, two girls and a boy and they will be gorgeous beautiful renaissance children.

Natalie Age 20- By age 28 I will be finishing up my residency in psychiatry and getting ready to open a private practice. I will have the perfect marriage and live in a nice house. I will possibly have a child but if not I will be getting ready to have one in the next year or so. I will have published many articles and will be working on some major psychiatric research.

Natalie Age 27 (for one more day)- At 28 I am trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I am in a wonderful and loving relationship and am not married but am with someone who I want those things to happen with sometime in the next ten years. I am thinking about how to eventually save enough money to buy a condo, probably in Chicago. I am working a job that I enjoy most days and feel as if I am making a difference to some of my students. I am “working on” my first novel that is incredibly self-indulgent that I have been "working on" for the past year and a half and I might eventually finish it. I periodically think of submitting my children’s book for publication. I am an utterly confused relatively directionless person but I am happy. I am at peace with that.

1. I never meant to give you mushrooms girl/ I never meant to bring you to my world/ But now you’re sitting in the corner crying/ And now it’s my fault my fault. My Fault, Eminem. Identified by Brooke.

2. I’ll do anything/ For my sweet sixteen/ And I’d do anything/ For little runaway child

3. The sea is foaming like a bottle of beer/ The wave is coming but I ain’t got no fear/ I’m waxing down so that I’ll go real fast/ I’m waxing down because it’s really a blast. Surf Wax America, Weezer. Identified by Monica

4. Two-headed boy/ all floating in glass/ The sun it is passed now it’s blacker than black/ I can hear as you tap on your jar. Two Headed Boy, Neutral Milk Hotel. Identified by Monica

5. Look on yonder misty mountain/ See the young monk meditating rhododendron forest/ over dusty hills I ask you/ What it’s been like being you. Epistle to Dippy, Donovan. Identified by Monica