Different places or places with a difference....

A fellow blogger in one of my Blogging groups Patricia Wycoff, posed a challenge within a challenge. Someone is to suggest a topic and then all of us write on that topic. Patricia offered to go first and suggested writing about "a place that was other than what you thought it was going to be." It could be a vacation, a job, a school, a store etc.

This was a hard one for me because I usually try to go somewhere without a lot of preconceived assumptions, perhaps because I don't want to be disappointed. Or I just want the experience to be what it is going to be...if that makes sense.

I have spent most of the evening - fortunately the Blue Jays opener is on TV so I am not expected to be "good company" - thinking about this challenge and here are my thoughts.

1. Years ago, I guess I expected university to be like high school and I found it difficult to deal with all the "free time." It took about six months for me to realize that this "time off" was not free. I needed to be in the library researching - lesson learned.

2. When I chose teaching as a career, I guess I thought that I would present a syllabus to eager minds who would just love Wordsworth as much as I did - think again. I soon realized that teaching wasn't so much about the subject as it was about the students. I did use poetry and can you believe grammar to "make a difference." I still have former students tell me how much they enjoy poetry now because of a lesson or two of mine.....and they know what a gerund is!!

3. I have had a few businesses along the way, mostly in creative fields and I guess I was under the assumption that one just did creative things and the sales happened. It again took about six months for me to realize that most of business is "slog" - marketing, sales calls, ordering, inventory, accounting, shipping....the list goes on. Maybe in the evening with the little free time left, there is time for the creative.

Life's like a box of chocolates

4. I think that I maybe had a fairy tale idea of marriage - someone to look after me for the rest of my life. Well I have been luckier than some, but I again realized early on that marriage is a two-way street. There is give and take and the more you put in, the more you get out of it.

5. I also thought, that children happened biologically and that for the most part, they were your "graven image." Again, I realized early on, that if we were going to raise children, they were going to come to us from "magical" places. I am still in awe that I have three wonderful children that came to us, with a lot of effort on our part, from places that I would never have considered. It is times like this, that I believe in divine providence!!

6. Somehow I thought that once you hit 65 you retired, that's it. Relax, the worst..or maybe the best is over. Not so. I have a business, my husband is still working, we have two children still in university and I hate to say this, but my father is 98 and stopped working at 90. I have no intention of stopping, but I would like to take another journey, on foot, maybe not around the world - though I will follow the fellow who is doing just that.

Have things been other that I expected - you bet. But so far the chips have fallen in my favour. Go places you have never been - you will rarely be disappointed!!

The picture - well it's a little like life. Sometimes you have a little more and sometimes a little less. If you read the instructions, you can avoid the ones with the centres you dislike - orange. You can eat them all at once, or you can make them last. You can share them or keep them all to yourself. Whatever you do with them, remember they are a gift - something special just for you!!

Have a great day