Lucky one.

Dear about-to-turn-28-years-old-Keri,

Hey, it’s you, from 10 years in the future!! Don’t believe me? Let’s talk about that stash of  Taco Bell bean burritos and the pack of ancient Camel Lights you keep in the icy recesses of your freezer in case of civic or natural disaster. No one knows (knew) about that, eh?
See, told you it was me.. er, you.

(By the way, you never use any of that stuff. No zombie apocalypse yet.)

I am writing this on the eve of my/ our 38th birthday.
The wedding you are furiously planning for September? It was beautiful, and stressful, and it took forever to get here, and was over in 2.2 seconds.
Just like the last 10 years.
That English degree you are getting that everyone assumes is just the next notch in your wandering-academic-eye belt? Guess what – it’s the keeper.
And you get a job. And another job. And another.
And you never stop starting sentences with “and,” or writing like you talk. (Sorry, Mrs. Babb. )

In December you’ll turn a corner at the animal shelter and find out the shape of your heart is 32 pounds of fluffy, doggie perfection, and you will think you can’t possibly get any luckier.
Then in a year or so, you’ll find the perfect open, airy, amazing 6th floor condo, with a patio to die for in the best location, and you’ll think you can’t possibly get any luckier.
You’ll grow into a group of friends you haven’t even met yet, and you will just KNOW you can’t get any luckier.

Then you will have your son – YEP – the M.S. is totally controlled, and the docs all green light you, and it goes perfectly and HE IS perfection, and I swear you will think your heart will explode from being the luckiest of the lucky.

To top it all off, you will move with your hubba husband, freaking adorable dog, and beyond awesome son, to a perfectly sized house right in the thick of YOUR HOME TOWN!!

28 year old Keri, WAIT!!
Stop running and screaming! Listen to your older and wiser self.

You will move back. It will be your choice.
You will live a mile from your parents.
Just up the road from the friend you’ve known longer than any other.
You’ll have more waves of deja vu and flashbacks and ‘WTF am I doing here’ moments than even your/our ridiculously overactive imagination can concoct.
You’ll get ANOTHER job.
You’ll undertake 2 years of remodling projects (dear God I hope we are done now.)

And 10 years from where you are, you will sit out on the patio in the same quiet you knew as a child, sipping a dirty martini, writing a letter to yourself by the light of your son’s room monitor, and you will know.

You will know, at the very center of the core of your being, that you couldn’t possibly be any luckier than you are to be right where you are in your life right then.

Happy birthday, 28 year old Keri.
The life you are on the brink of launching into is nothing like you planned, and every single thing you ever dared to dream.