(this post started on Thursday but finished on Friday)
Happy to report that I did what I planned yesterday. 20 min easy yoga, 30 min run, golf lesson with Sofia (I didn’t do good until the last 5 min), worked until 2pm, took a short nap, and just cruised through until I hit bed at 8pm.
We remember to take monthly picture for the girls before their online class. I love seeing them changing every month. too fast!!!
Then this picture of me with my first friend in life (we met when we were 18 months old) taken 18 years ago popped up. At that time, I was still in college in Argentina and was visiting my hometown Shanghai during winter break. We were both single and full of plans for our lives when we met.
We are still BFF and curiously, despite living apart for many years decades, once we both became mothers and settled into motherhood, our interests converged again. Now we both turned 40 (we are one month apart), we both felt the 20s life seems so remote, like it was lived by someone else that we know very well. Don’t you get that feeling? Life as student in the 20s is so different than married life with kids with an established career. While I like the feeling of possibilities at that time, it was also filled with anxiety and uncertainty, and I kept asking myself at that time, what if I ended up being a mediocre person? Who would know that carrying an ordinary life would be what I want now?
In the 20s, I wanted excitement, challenge, new places, new people, new new new. Seeking purpose was the underline task, not an easy one.
In the 30s, I was navigating life changes into marriage, kids, career, move to a new country, and still not sure I found the purpose of lie.
In the late 30s and 40, I am still navigating balancing a life with the family while still still feel the thrill and excitement and new projects from work. I feel very fortunate to still feel it at this age, but I know what family comes first no matter what. I would and should never sacrifice time with my family for work. And finally I found purpose and meaning to my life and happy about what it is.
Do I miss my 20s? I do and I don’t. If I could do over again, I’d do exactly what I did. Making mistakes was part of the process to lead where I am now.
What am I hoping for my 40s? See my girls grow, prepare them for life, live in the moment, take care of my relationships, do things that challenges me, inspire others, and be content with our amazing ordinary life.
Our New Journey 
I like your comment that if you could do it all over again, you wouldn’t change anything. I think about this sometimes. There are definitely some things from my 20’s that part of me thinks I wish were different, that I had done xyz differently, etc. But then I also think…. but, that probably played a role in something else happening! It’s like that old movie The Butterfly Effect. You can’t really change even one tiny thing in the past without the cumulative effect drastically changing a million other things! Also so funny sometimes to think how one small decision can change your whole life. In my case, I got paired up with a Spanish conversation partner in college (a girl from Venezuela) when I was volunteering to help her learn English. It was a random pairing through the volunteer organization. Well, as a result of knowing her, I ended up meeting my husband, through mutual friends of ours! So I often think…. gosh, just think- if they had assigned me a different conversation partner, or I hadn’t chosen to volunteer there, I would have never met her, meaning I never would have met HIM- and my entire life would be different. And my boys wouldn’t be who they are! So weird. 🙂
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