The Plan.

We all have plans, right?  Where we want to go in life, what we envision for ourselves, etc... This turn of events is not what I had planned at all. I had a set list of how my life was going to go, what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. My "plan" went something like this:


1.  Graduate high school (easy enough).


2.  Go to college (no idea where, or what to major in).


3.  Graduate from college (a first for my immediate family).


4.  Land dream job with a corner office with a view of some major city.


5.  Find beautiful man to share the rest of my life with.


6.  Get married.


7.  Have the perfect marriage, perfect life, perfect kids, perfect career.


8.  Secretly enjoy the fact that people are jealous of me and want to be just like me.


Ok, so steps one, two, and three were easy enough... and that's about where I stopped.  I went to college and decided to major in business for my associate's degree.  It was the cutoff date to sign up and I was in the office, looking at the paper that asked me what I wanted to major in... With all the little check boxes with their options listed to the right of them, business seemed most logical to me, who doesn't need business majors to help run their highly successful companies?  So, that was easy enough and I was ready to get my bachelor's degree.  This time, I decided on marketing.  Honestly, my reasoning was that a couple cousins of mine had done it and had done ridiculously well in it, so thought I automatically would, too.  (Plus, I hated financing and accounting with a passion and marketing is perfect for NOT dealing with those subjects.)  I picked the most entertaining major in the world.  The projects were fun, the classes were exciting, I got to work with really fun companies, and I met some really amazing people.  I had FUN in college.  Looking back, maybe I should have focused more on the work and not so much on the fun.


Then college was over, and there I was; 23 (almost 24) years old, waiting tables at Bonefish Grill, nobody was knocking at my door to beg me to work for them, and not a lot of promising jobs were looking for a college grad with waitressing on her resume.  Talking with another gal I had graduated with, who was also waiting tables, she made the joke one day of "why don't you join the military and become an officer?".  Call it impulse, call it a lapse of judgement, call it whatever you want, something about that just sounded like a good idea.  So, two hours later, without an ounce of wine to blame it on, I was in SSG Miller's office, discussing my possible military future.


It took me about three months to decide if I was actually going through with this and if so, which branch I wanted to join with.  The National Guard eventually won me over. on 090909, I enlisted and signed roughly the next ten years of my life away to the government.  I remember the night before I shipped to basic, SSG Starr and SGT Hilger came to see me at the hotel.  I was a nervous nelly.  Being personal friends, they were less formal and invited me to have a few cocktails, which I think is the only reason I got to sleep at all that night.  The next 75 days were... fun.  Think I'm crazy, but getting the chance to carry around big weapons, blow things up, and have someone yell all the time over nonsense made sense to me.  I just loved it.  So then, after basic training, I returned home.  Back to waiting tables, watching TV, drinking wine, and thinking about working out more than actually doing it. 


A hip injury kept me from shipping to OCS (Officer Candidate School) when I wanted to, and now instead of shipping July 10, I'm looking at a tentative January 11... I'm more annoyed than you can imagine, but now since I've been my typical lazy self, I'm down to the wire and have to put my running shoes on and hit the trail, starting today.  So, being a fitness stud has never been in my plan, but I guess that plan went to shit the day I graduated college.  That's it for now, time for me to get off my lazy ass and see how much I still hate running.