My Place? Or Yours?

I heard two songs on the radio this morning, back-to-back.

"I ain't the kind you take home to Mama, I ain't the kind to wear no ring.  Somehow I always get stronger when I'm on my separate team."

Switch station.

"Slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll, don't that sound like a real man?"

Okay.  Nothing like having God point out what you've been trying to ignore via Miranda Lambert songs, and even before you've fully downed your morning caffeine.  I already hate my hour each way commute, and even more when my brain is trying to NOT THINK.  Sigh.

So...  What do you do when you've wanted something for as long as you can remember but realize that maybe you aren't actually cut out for what you've wanted?  Say you wanted to be a pilot, but in pilot-training school, you find out you have extreme motion sickness and almost poop yourself when you get more than four feet off of the ground?  Then what?  Especially when that's the ONLY THING YOU WANTED TO BE.  A pilot.  Well, from the time I can remember anything, I wanted to be a wife and mother.  Suzy Homemaker, Donna Reed.  I have attempted this.  I got married way too young to a man-child who left shortly after his son's birth less than a year into the marriage.  I have chased the elusive dragon of marriage, home and family ever since.  I've come way, way too close to making similar disastrous nuptials more than once since.  The last man-child told me he wanted to marry me, and when I explained that I wasn't sure I ever wanted to get married again, he "slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll" and then put me through my living room wall.  In front of his mother.  Yep, I sure know how to pick 'em.

I have been presented four, yes FOUR, engagement rings in my 32 years on this planet, all of them by age 30.  I have had at least seven men-children tell me they wanted to marry me.  I am beginning to see that I may not be the actual marrying type.  First, I have a horrible man "picker."  I always pick immature, controlling and usually lazy men-children who want a mommy or a maid.  I can say I dated only one real man, but he actually was still a child when we dated.  I screwed up in letting that one go.  Second, I kind of like being the master of my own destiny.  I don't have to share.  Does that make me selfish?  Probably.  But I don't have to consult anyone about anything if I don't want to.  I kind of like that.  Third, if I screw something up, like my retirement savings or getting a dog that eats the flooring, I made that decision.  Just me.  I don't have to deal with anyone else's stupid decisions on top of my own.

Okay.  So I'm probably not meant to be someone's "little wife."  Where does that leave the dream, the idea of what my life was going to be like?  I think that is the question I struggle with the most.  Should I collect cats and jigsaw puzzles?  (Shudder.  I hate jigsaw puzzles.)  Should I become a fabulous femme fatale and leave a trail of broken men in my wake?  Is there a happy medium where legends/examples are not made of me after I'm gone?  (Your great-aunt Carrie was some lady.  She had 87 cats and 53 lovers.  She also baked her false teeth into a pie once.  She was so confused, and she had a bad back, probably from all those lovers.  Come to think of it, she may have been confused because she took back pills.)  I feel like my slight detour on the map of my life has put me into a different country.  I don't know the language, customs or currency, but I kind of like it anyway.  Does that mean the death of me as I knew me, or am I just me with an alternate ending?  Me with a work visa? Am I copping out on what  wanted all of those years or am I just realizing who I really am inside?

Dammit Miranda Lambert.  I was just trying to peacefully navigate the road construction on my way to work. Now my head hurts.