A Is For Answers

First off, hello and welcome if you are stopping by from the A to Z Challenge!  Second, I did not win the Mega Millions even though I'm sure I would have been the best millionaire ever.  All my big plans will just have to wait....but onward to today's post...

So, Wednesday night, I had dinner with one of my oldest friends.  We had a wonderful, funny time catching up (two glorious hours of uninterupted dinner conversation) and went on our merry ways swearing we would get together more than just once every six months or so.  This is especially sad when we live just miles apart, but we both agreed to try to do better.

Old home week continued on my trip to WalMart, when I ran into another woman that I went to school with.  She works there and we tend to chit chat anytime I'm there, but as she was checking out my assorted items, she asked the question that most people tend to ask someone of my age, "So did you get married?  Do you have kids?"  My standard answer to the kids thing is, "Yep.  I have 80 of them and I get to send them home at 3:00 pm and do whatever I want for the rest of the day."  And that's true enough.  My students are like my children.  I love them with all I have.  I adore my niece, and my friends' children, and have great plans for all of the fun things that Aunt Katie will do with them.  But, I've said it before and I will say it again, I don't know if I want kids.  I would never say never, but the older I get, the more I feel like maybe that's not the life I am supposed to lead. 

The marriage thing is a little trickier.  I mean, to put it bluntly, it's not like any guy has asked me to marry him.  I've  never been the kind of girl who has suitors a mile wide and twice as deep.  I'm more of a "I can count them on one hand" sort of girl.   And besides, rumor has it, that unless you are some mail-order bride, a la Sarah, Plain and Tall (Katie, Short and Round does not have the same ring to it), you have to date someone first and I am not exactly great at that part.  That whole situation used to bother me, as well, but it's not really something I think about all that often anymore.  Sheena told me once that any guy who decided he wanted to be with me would have to be pretty great, because living alone as long as I have makes it hard for me to want to give up that level of independence.  And she was then, and is still, completely right.  I know how to live alone.  I am not bothered by it.  Sure, I have lonely times, but doesn't everyone?  I would never say I didn't want to get married.  If that man came along, I would jump in with both feet, but I am not waiting for it to happen either.

I love my life, crazy and funny and busy and full of all the things that life brings.  I love it just as it is, but am open to whatever comes.  And I wouldn't trade it for anything.  (But I'm pretty sure I would've been so much better at it with the MegaMillions!  HA!)