1 : Something Old, Something New

I would like to do regular updates under the headings of Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue - hopefully weekly.  I'll start this off with joining the first two together in Something Old and Something New.

 

My Something Old for this week is remembering back to when I was 18 years old living in Salisbury in a tiny unit crammed between two drug dealers! I was 9 months pregnant, scared, lonely and living away from any friends and family that I had thought that I had... 

 

Turning 18 back then wasn't all it was promised to be, I was becoming an adult, yes.  I could legally drink, yes.  Being one of the rare people our age that had our own place back then, we did have a handful of then loyal friends come around and use the opportunity to try and have a bit of a party.  I had made it to adulthood and could for the first time legally drink, yet my baby was due any day and I could not.  I had lost my skinny body, I had lost my freedom, I had lost my opportunity to be anything that I wanted, I had lost my self....  I was about to be a mother to someone else, to be responsible forever and never again could my life entirely be my own.  All I wanted for my baby was for it not to be born on my 18th birthday, not for selfish reasons but for the first time in my life it was for selfless reasons...  I didn't want my baby to turn out like me!

 

My Something New came exactly 24 years later when I turned 21x2 in New York City!  I had travelled there alone on my own journey of self discovery, and yet, on my special day I was joined by someone very special.  Someone I could never have imagined as that young frightened 18 year old full of worry about the future, someone who changed my life for the better and not for the worst.  The last 24 years certainly haven't been easy but I would have never chosen to do it any other way.  As there on that hot, muggy, New York City day I met up with that same baby all grown up, my daughter Kiara.  Who could have imagined two birthdays being so different yet both involving the same person?  Twenty-four years after I had my baby at the tender age of 18 years and 2 weeks I was able to celebrate with that same child all grown up in New York City!  Kiara is successful, finished high school with two dux and completed a degree.  She is now a qualified Registered Nurse and paid for this second overseas trip all by herself.  No, she didn't turn out like me, she turned out like her and I am proud of that!