The life I wanted.

This afternoon we went to the beach. We were all tired and cranky, and very over the week past. Freedom by the waves, allowing us to just be ourselves, sounded like the perfect solution. The sun was slowly setting after we had walked the regular distance we walk, but we kept walking. It just wasn't enough. We needed more peace and time, so we walked far. So far that it was night time well before we made it back to the car.

We walked on towards the light. Children laughing and playing in little light, one drawing a continuous line of different shapes as the others giggled and followed. One child walking silently beside me, and one on Craig's shoulders, almost touching the stars. The sounds of the ocean a constant in the background, while watching the foam lap the shore, with the tiny lights of the city far beyond.

Memories floated in with the tide, and before long one memory - long forgotten - took hold.

It was like remembering the memory belonging to a different person. And in a way, I was. I was so very different from who I am now.

It was an evening much like this one. Darkness on the beach, only this time with friends. I walked a little way alone, a small distance from the group. In the momentary solitude I walked along, wondering what my life would be like. I walked silently filled with hope, curiosity and anticipation. I couldn't wait for life to start.

I hadn't yet realised that the life I was waiting to start, was one I was already living. But I was excited and there was so much ahead of me.

I imagined the life I wanted. Success to be sure. Money. A career. And it went without saying: a husband who would adore me and shower me with gifts. It was all I wanted, this very narrow view of what my wonderful life would hold.

A different person. I couldn't help laughing at what I once valued and was striving to achieve, far from what I value now.

But then so much has happened since then. A change of heart about my university degree, meeting my now-husband while I was still so young, and having a child, not to mention the four children that followed, has changed me incredibly. I don't recognise the person I once was.

I no longer measure my life based on ideals that I once thought were so very important. I no longer believe that I am waiting to live the life I want. I no longer think success can even truly be measured, or even needed, to live an amazing life. I now know that life doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be about achieving. It doesn't have to be anything really. My life is a collection of the moments I choose to live right now, full of love, hard work, everyday simplicity, challenges, and all the emotions I never would have believed possible.

As I walked along the beach tonight, almost 20 years older, and much wiser, I felt so very blessed. The moment I was living was really all I wanted. And that is the greatest gift I could ever be given: to be entirely content where I was at that moment, with no 'if only-s' clouding my mind or view. I knew right then that I didn't need to see the whole world to know I had the best for me right there.

When I think about the future lives of my children, I hope they will find love and happiness and so much more. But what I hope oh so much, is that at some point in their lives they stand, just as I did tonight, and realise they actually have all the world has to offer right there with them. I hope they find themselves completely content where they are, valuing all in their lives, from the simple to extraordinary.

I couldn't be happier that the naive girl I once was, grew up to live a completely different life than the one she imagined for herself. I may get tired, cranky, irritated and overwhelmed. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Mixed in there is the wonderful, the lovely, the awesome and the contentedness, wrapped in the memories that make up the simple life I choose and re-choose to live every single day.

Jen.x