I don’t think I’m alone in this so I’m going to talk about it here. I hit these periods in my life where I spend a lot of time looking back over the past few years. Now sometimes when this happens I like what I see, what I’ve done, where I’ve been. Sometimes I am proud and pat myself on the back a little.

But sometimes I don’t like what I’ve seen and I’m disappointed in myself and my lack of progress. Don’t get me wrong…these are not regrets, just deficiencies I see in myself and in time that I spent idle when I could’ve been moving forward.

I’ve hit one of these periods recently and what triggers them I think is big changes in my life. Two years ago I did the same thing after my uncle passed, and now after my Great Aunt has passed, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me this interest in my recent history and personal evaluation. To a certain degree I suppose I should be glad I’ve been affected profoundly enough to feel it’s time to alter the course of my life.

Several years ago, my son started having trouble in school and after thinking long and hard about it, I decided to take a break from going to school part time and be here for him in the evening to help with his homework. Though I can’t say either of us has benefited from the homework help because he’s a stubborn boy, I have enjoyed the time just being a mom that works and comes home. My house is cleaner than it used to be, most of the time.

I still feel that I’ve been idle and have left a piece of the puzzle out. I feel I’ve got unfinished business and I’m fortunate to know what it is. I have a degree to finish.

Funny thing though, what once was so clear regarding the direction I wanted to take has now become a hazy, gray area and I’m not sure what I want to do. I considered a writing/english type degree, but really what would that get me? I am a greedy one, if I’m spending the money on the education, it needs to make me some money in return.

However some of my real life experience in the working world has changed my opinion of what I desire to do with my time. I’m at an impasse.

You see I remember a time a long time ago, when I was hanging out with a friend of mine, near and dear to me now, that waxed prophetic to me one day and changed my life. She said that no matter what you do in life, Education is the one thing no one can take from you. No matter how low in life you get, if what you know got you to the top once, it can get you there again. I was in school already that’s where I met her, but I was just going to get a certificate and be on my way.

Oddly I can’t remember what certificate program I started after. It was months after we became friends that she said that to me, but it stuck with me and made me decide that a certificate program wasn’t going to cut it. I realized that it would never be enough and I was selling my son short.

And myself.

She didn’t know it then but she changed my life that day. That was the day that I began in a small way to believe in myself. And it was because she believed in me. I knew she must have or she wouldn’t have wasted her breath on me….she is not the kind of person that believes in lost causes, I knew that then and even more so now. Until that time, I didn’t know what that was like.

I re-evaluated my life shortly after that and decided major changes needed to be made that were hindering my forward movement in life. I became a single mom when my son was two and from that time on I had so much more to prove, to him and to me.

Lately I think I’ve become complacent and can’t believe for a while there I actually thought school had nothing more to teach me. I’m shocked at myself for adopting such a view. So now I’m motivated again to make something of myself, to prove that I can be somebody. I’m going to go back to school…once I figure out some sort of direction. I’m giving myself til December or January, whenever the enrollment period is for school, and I’m going back, in the Spring.

But I wondered…

Do you believe in you? Where do you see yourself in five years?

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I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but hubby and I are going on a cruise on the 1st of November. We’re excited…sort of.

This isn’t really the kind of trip we would’ve planned for ourselves, but then again, if left to our own devices, who knows if we’d ever even take one, lol. We always talk about it but have yet to actually do it. You know how it is, life gets in the way.

My boss, in place of a Christmas bonus, has bought hubby and I tickets to go on a five day cruise. In and of itself that’s a helluva Christmas bonus, and I can understand his reasoning as well, he says if he gives me money I’ll probably spend it on bills and the government will tax it, this way he’s sure I’ve had fun with my bonus and the government doesn’t get a dime of it. I’m cool with that.

It’s the preparation for this cruise that puts us in the “sort of excited” mood. We don’t have a lot of extra money in our budget as we’ve had to make some car repairs recently, we both could really use a shopping trip to update our wardrobes and me, well I need to lose a few l-b’s first. We want to drink, because we’re drinkers, and we’ve been told the drinks are expensive and can really add up on the cruise, which really gives us pause because have I mentioned we’re drinkers?

Food is not the issue that will make either of us gain weight because neither of us are all that excited about food…it’s drinking that gets us. It’s drinking that has added weight to my small frame and not eating right. The quantity has never been a problem…it’s the quality.

What’s worse is that while yes we want to drink on the cruise, the other thing is that we’d like to take a shore excursion, but that’s expensive too. So you see we’re pretty limited as to what we can do when we go. That’s not to say this isn’t a great gift and the four days off from work won’t be much needed, but I’m wondering if when we return from said cruise we aren’t going to feel like just having the money would have been a better idea.

Time will tell I suppose. We set sail on November 1st out of Galveston (if there’s a port even) and will be at sea for a few days with a stop in Cozumel and in Progresso, Mexico. I hope there’s lots to do on the ship because we’ve chosen drinking over any shore excursions, lol. If any of you have taken a cruise and are drinkers and can tell me if I’m overestimating costs or not, that would be great, but as of now we’ve decided we’d like to take a couple hundred bucks but beyond that can’t afford to blow the piggy bank.

I would be interested to hear stories from other people that have gone on a similar cruise through Carnival, we’ll be on the ship Ecstasy by the way, to the Mexico area to be specific – so that if anyone shares information or was on this cruise, your information may help me be a little more accurate in my budget for this trip. You see my mother and father in law have been on this same cruise, on a different ship but they don’t drink. Nor would I feel comfortable asking them how much they spent on this thing or that thing, etc.

But if I could get an idea of what an average cocktail costs, and beer, I think that would set my mind at ease greatly. I know about how much we would drink, I just want to budget for it. Smart people are always budgeting and trying to stay within that budget…at least, that’s what I tell myself.

So spill fellow cruisers! With that, I leave you with a song…about cruising, of course!

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