Graduation Conversation

Graduation announcements are all over my refrigerator, and that got me thinking. How long have I been out of college now? Five years. Wow! FIVE years!!! 

• Five years ago, my last name was at the end of the alphabet, I didn't know Greg, and I had no idea that a little princess named Izzy would one day rule my life!

• Five years ago, my grandpa was running alongside my car every time I left his house (just like he did when I was a little girl), and we had no clue that he had cancer.

• Five years ago, Lucy was only eight years old. (Fifty-six in dog years.) 
  

• Five years ago, I stopped working for minimum wage at The Northeastern, my college's newspaper and started my first 'real' job working at KOTV.
  

• Five years ago, I thought 30 was old... now that I'm quite a bit closer to it, I think 40 is old.
  

• Five years ago, my little sister, Nikki, who now has three kiddos, was kid-less. Pregnant with Addison, but still kid-less!  

• Five years ago, I had never tried sushi. Boy, I was missing out!
  

• Five years ago, I had only lived in Oklahoma... and now I've lived in four other states.
  

• Five years ago, I didn't own a digital camera. Thus, the abscence of pictures to document this blog!
  

It's really hard to believe how much has changed in just five years. What will happen in the next five years? And how could one really predict what's to come? There's no way I could have predicted the things that have happened to me. Five years ago, I'd have never believed it if someone would have told me that I'd have a one-year-old little girl at the age of 27.

In retrospect, it's easy to see the stepping stones... circumstances that I didn't understand or that maybe frustrated me. At the time they were stumbling blocks, but those things led me to very precious, significant days in my life. 

Everything truly does happen for a reason. It's hard to say that and mean it while we're living in those uncircumstancial, frustrating times. But sometimes we just can't see those stepping stones until we look back. And in looking back, we can live our best day today, knowing that today is a stepping stone, and it will surely lead us to the next great thing in our lives.