Who could have known?

Lately I've been thinking alot of how my life is turning out, and how every single aspect of it is totally unexpected. And so far I've avoided talking about what exactly brought me to this point, because most of you know it already, and because it's rather unpleasant. But. I'm driving myself crazy by posting nothing but distractions the last few weeks.

Who knew I would leave home at 17, and move 8.5 hours away from any real support system? Who knew I would drop out of high school (ME, folks, ME, who thought University would be her big escape and had been dreaming about it since Grade 9?). And who the HELL would have thought I would develop addictions to certain street drugs? That's something you deal with every day, the flashbacks and cravings when you're stressed out, or feeling down about your life. It involves developing a whole new way of coping in nearly every aspect of your life, new social scene, new everything. Added to the whole thing is the stigma of even being an addict in the first place, and being able to talk about it anywhere else than stupid smoky AA/NA meetings. Which is not my scene. Definitely not.

Who knew I would fail out of college? And who could predict how much of a failure I feel like for doing so? While I'm going to go back (as soon as I get the tuition charge cleared off my record, I'll be taking a course part-time this fall), its still there. That feeling of total inadequacy. Who fails out of college these days? Who can't pull it together long enough to pass a few bloody courses and get a f*$king piece of paper?

And who knew I'd still be waiting for the day where what I'm doing is "good enough" for my Mother. I've come to the sad realization that that day may never happen, and actually most likely won't. There will always be something else that I'm not doing well enough for her, even if I weighed 130 pounds, pulled a 70K annual salary, lived in a half-million dollar house, drove a fancy car, was married with children, etc. I don't know what she could deem "not good enough" in that scenario, but trust me, she would. Undoubtably.
And while this saddens me beyond belief, and makes me at some times feel like cutting her out of my life completely, I love her. She is MY MOTHER, for crissakes. Even if she's toxic.
*sigh*. So many issues with her. So many, sometimes I drown in them.

And, biggest shocker of all (other than the college thing)? Finding 'the one' at such a young age. I mean, I always thought about it in the abstract sense, you know, finding someone when I was in my 30's. Faceless guy, faceless children. But now I wake up everyday and he's sleeping beside me. He's IT. And I daydream about whether our children will inherit his eyes, my sense of humor, his work-ethic, my hair colour.
And I worry that, while he's IT right now, will he still be my IT when I'm 40? My parents situation (separating after 30+ years of marriage) has taught me that you can never take your situation for granted. It's not that I worry that I'm making the wrong choice with him, though. Because the way I feel when I think about him and think about us, its a feeling that goes deep into my bones, a feeling of utter peace and comfort, a feeling I've never felt before in my life. And while I'm hesitant to use the tired old cliché of "you just know", its kind of like that. There's no words to describe it adequately.

But you can never predict what life is going to throw at you. What if we lose a child? What if we have a child with a severe disability? What if....? Will our marriage be stronger for it? Or will it crumble?
And the worst part of it is that its not as if you can know, for SURE, until it's happening to you. I think it would be foolish to issue a blanket statement of "oh of course, we'll be fine" because, really, HOW the hell can you know? You can't. You can't even BEGIN to imagine. Until it happens. And then .... what?