"On a clear day, I can see....see for a long way...."

When someone is born into the world as, of course an infant; that's birth.....but when someone becomes someone new and their possibilities become endless, their maturation is so extraordinay that you can't even remember who they used to be; that's called re-birth.....and I'm going to tell you the story of my own re-birth....I will be brief so as not to bore, but concise so as to fully capture its magnitude......it will be 2 years in April when my life began, and I didn't realize it, until this very moment.

It wasn't because of someone else that I changed. It was actually because I left someone else behind that caused my life to finally spark....with life, if it even makes sense to write such a statement. Anyway, I digress, the choice I made was past due really and I'm not going to re-hash it for you all now, but that's the exact time it happened. I simply woke up. I moved 800 miles away. I was accepted into school to earn my degree in english. I busted my ass waiting on both appreciative and overly appreciative golfers. Stashed away a nice nest egg for myself and was even able to loan money to a few people whom I love/adore, with no worries about my own welfare. It was fantastic. I was single. It was new for me and I savored every second of it!

I turned 24 this last November and with the excitement of a birthday came this feeling of doom. DOOM. What a word....so gloomily descriptive....yet so accurately used in this particular case, because while 24 is by no means old.....to me it felt gloomy. All of the things previously mentioned became burdens all of the sudden. I began despising school work and found out I wasn't going to be graduating as quickly as I had originally anticipated. Working in the restaraunt was becoming tedious and, for lack of a better word, annoying. I was spending too much of my "nest egg" on items I definitely did not need.....and the worst part of it all was.....I was missing the one thing I left behind not so very long ago. There was nothing there to miss, but I sure as hell found a way to miss it. I guess you could say that my 24th birthday brought with it a sense of self-pity, a lack a self-esteem (seeings how I have not had a boyfriend in almost 2 years now), and most of all a lack in overall self-worth. I was feeling so low about myself I didn't even feel like turning to God anymore (and He's the One who listens the best believe it or not)

I had dreams when I was 21 of where I would be by the time I was 24 or 25 and those dreams had your basic.....husband/children/career all in that order. I was closer at 21 to the husband and children than I am now, at 24 and, well....call it petty....but it scared me to death, because then I started thinking.....will I even be blessed enough to bring children into this world?? Is any man EVER going to love me like I was loved in the past?? And then of course thoughts like those turn into thoughts like.....that was NOT love! WAKE UP BETH!!!

How does God....or the world.....or anyone decide who falls in love with who.....and who gets to have the fabulous families and who doesn't??? Why can't everyone have those blessings?? Why can't those miracles be automatic??

Well......I've just recently come to my "mature" conclusion.....you remember right?? The one I was writing about previously??? And it began with my new job as a radio personality and while I've only been at it now for a week, I've discovered something about myself with it that I never knew existed and that is.... I was meant for something here.......and it isn't actually all about the husband I thought I'd have by this time or the child I thought I'd have given birth to by this time.....or the wonderful career I was destined for by 24. It's about re-birth.....the re-birth of me.

I've been single now for the longest I've ever been in probably the past 10-12 years of my life.....and for the very first time in those 10-12 years I've finally figured out what it takes to find fulfillment and while it may get lonely sometimes.....I know myself better now than I ever have. I'm doing what I set out for when I moved 2 years ago......at last! I've learned it's important to stop putting time constraints on my life....I need this before I turn 28 and that before I turn 35....blahblahblah.

My grandfather passed away a short time ago. A sad occasion to say the least. But as I looked through the pictures of his life, I realized it was one filled.....just "filled." If anything, if I'm blessed enough to live as long as my gramps did.....I have faith enough in myself that my life will become just as "filled" which gives me more than enough to look forward to and less to cry about at night.