When does life begin?

When I was sixteen I remember thinking I couldn't wait for my life to begin.  Soon I would be in college, on my own, no rules, no oppressive family life to overcome.  Childhood gone and forgotten.  I could finally start MY life.


Then I was eighteen, and in college.  Soon, my life would begin.  I would finish classes and get my degree.  I would start a career and not have to worry about where my next meal would come from or how I would cover next semester's tuition.  I would be a grown up.  My life would finally begin.


Then I got pregnant and dropped out of college.  It was unplanned, as most things are, but at least then my life would begin.  I started to plan.  I was alone, though not for long or so I thought.  As fate often does, it had other plans for me and I lost the baby at sixteen weeks.  My life didn't begin.  


I wandered around the country, mostly following a man, for six years, selling roses and grooming jousting horses  at renaissance faires, waiting for my life to begin.  I had lovers.  I had drugs.  I had a romantic -albeit dirty- gypsy life.  I had fun.  What did I have to lose?  I was still waiting for my life to begin.  


I hit my mid-twenties, still waiting.  I watched my friends get married, have children, have careers, have lives, while I had crap jobs and piece of shit boyfriends who still lived with their parents.  I was running out of time.  Somewhere in my mind I heard this quiet ticking.  Not a biological clock, mind you.  I knew I wasn't ready for babies.  I still liked to party.  I still wanted to have fun and be young.  But in my mind, my life wouldn't begin until I had someone to share it with.


To this day, I wonder where that came from.  I was surrounded by young, brilliant, successful women who had careers and lives completely independent of any man.  They were not defined by their relationships.  I left home at a very young age because I knew I could BE one of those women, yet I found myself needing to tie myself to a man in order to feel like I could start my life.


At twenty-seven I moved back to a place I feared and loathed...home.  So my life could finally begin.  Surprise, it didn't.  I worked dead-end job after dead-end job, dating loser after loser, hoping maybe the next loser would be the one to bring me up out of my hole.  Maybe this loser would marry me and my life would finally begin.


At thirty I did meet someone and I got so extraordinarily lucky, I still have a hard time believing it.  He was not a loser.  He is a good guy.  A great guy.  We were married a year later.  Parents a year after that.  And you know what?  I am still sitting here waiting for my life to begin.


That last sentence sums it all up.  I am sitting here.  Waiting.  It has taken me thirty-eight years, countless hours of therapy, too many drugs to list, journals full of pitiful tears and the verge of divorce for me to finally realize that my life isn't just going to begin.  I have to MAKE IT BEGIN.  It sounds so simple, doesn't it?  I think it's about time I get off my ass and start my life, don't you?