An Unexpected Sort of Life

What I expected when I was sixteen:
1. Go to BYU
2. Meet a nice, returned missionary
3. Date said missionary for six months to a year
4. Get married to said missionary
5. Graduate
6. Raise four children in a nice home in a suburb somewhere in Utah
7. Live happily ever after

What I got
1. Went to BYU
2. Met and dated plenty of returned missionaries, some nice, some not so nice
3. Never dated anyone more than two months
4. Still not married
5. Two degrees later...BA and JD
6. No kids to speak of, no house, and definitely not in Utah
7. Living...sometimes happily, sometimes not

The Unexpected Part:
You might be just like me. You might have expected one thing and then things turned out differently. I guess I just expected certain things because, well, everyone I knew had those things, and it still seems like that is the case. Imagine you were born in to a social order where everyone was married by thirty. And in that social order, everyone had a family. And most women you knew didn't work. That was around you all the time. How can you not expect that?

My life is entirely unexpected and sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream. And I'll wake up from the dream and I will be surrounded by a husband and children and I'll even maybe, but hopefully not, have a mini van. And I'll be busy arranging baby-sitters and play dates and PTA meetings.

And yet.

There is this part of me that can't even fathom waking up to that. I can't imagine it. I can't comprehend it. I can't even ever see it happening. Ever. Not in a faithless, woe is me sort of way. More in an alien life sort of way. Almost like waking up as a French woman living in Paris. Because I'm not French. You know?

It isn't to say life is bad or wrong. And really, I'm happy and I like my life. Most days.

It's just that its an unexpected life. So tell me this. What is unexpected about your life? Even if you have a husband and children and the white picket fence.