One thing I will stress to my daughter..

Earlier today, I was reading all of my Facebook updates, and a friend from high school had posted a bunch of pics from those days. Let me just first start by saying whoa at how far cameras have came in the past 11-13 years. I was laughing at the "top of the line" picture quality back then.

After getting past the shock of how much better pictures look today, I started to get rather emotional. It seems like high school was just yesterday, and it also seems like it was just yesterday that I was wishing away some of the best years of my life. Everyone knows the classic "I can't wait to be on my own so I can do whatever I want" teenager syndrome. If only I had known just how fast those years would go by, and that I have the rest of my life to be an adult. I almost started to cry looking at those pictures.

Don't get me wrong, I have a fantastic life right now. God has blessed me with a great husband, great friends, and a healthy, intelligent, and thriving daughter. I love my adult life, but I wish I would have slowed down as a teenager to truly appreciate how carefree those days were because they were gone as soon as I turned 18.

I knew everything back then, too. I was going to get married as soon as I turned 18 and live happily ever after. Yeah, that fairy-tale didn't happen until 6 years later. I struggled through a lot of heartbreak with ex-boyfriends that I thought were true to me, and they were not. I also struggled with my faith, and I was Agnostic for quite a few years. Little did I know, God had a different plan for me.

I remember a saying that my grandma told me when I was little about how a man treats his mother will more than likely be the way he treats his girlfriend or wife. I didn't understand what one had to do with the other back then, but looking back to my previous relationships, the guys were never very nice to their mothers. One thing I will stress to Shayna when she is older is to wait to get serious with a guy, and if he seems less than stellar to everyone else around her, then he probably is.

When I met David, I quickly discovered that his mother was his world, as was his father, but I never did get to meet him. He would drop everything when she needed him. She was an amazing woman and I miss her dearly.

Most of my friends from that day have went on to get married and have kids just like I did, and as I am now approaching 30, I wish I would have listened to my grandma when she was telling me that I would have the rest of my life to be able to do what I want, but there is also a trade off of paying bills and being responsible.

I'm sure one of these days Shayna will get that same attitude about not being able to wait to get out on her own, and I will be able to tell her not to wish her carefree days away because she will miss them. If she's anything like me, she will not listen, but I promise to show her this blog, and this video: