So Many Kids But Not Me

My friends have a lot of kids. 

I got three holiday cards last month and they're all on my fridge because they are all from people that I really care about. And they're from different parts of my life, from age 17 to age 37. One of the cards is from one of my best friends from high school. She has two kids. Her daughter was the last baby I held. That baby is 11 now. Another card is from my best friend from college. She has three kids. The youngest just started kindergarten this year. And the third card is from my friend from graduate school ten years ago, the young guy that had the baby with his wife. They've had two more since then. So that's three friends with a total of eight kids.

Then I think about my other best friends from high school. One of them has two kids. Her oldest just turned 18 and will be graduating high school this year. The other friend has three kids, and they're all under ten years old. 

My other best friend from college doesn't have any kids. And our mutual friend from college doesn't have any kids either. I guess most of our acquaintances do though.

Then another close friend from grad school just had her third kid last week. 

So... There are the 8 kids on my fridge, plus 5 more kids from high school friends, and another 3 kids from a grad school friend. Holy cow, that's 16 kids. And that's only among six friends. I have more friends. That's a lot! I could open a virtual private school just for my friends' kids lol.

It just strikes me as weird. When it's totally normal. But I think it's weird that my friends have all these kids. But I probably wouldn't think it was weird if I would've had kids. 

And really, I'm the "weird" one. Not them. I'm the one that's not like most everyone else. 

I don't know why I've been thinking about this so much lately, but I have. It's like I just realized that among my friends there are, like, a billion kids. And that's what they're all doing. Raising their kids. Feeding their kids. Taking their kids to school and practice and their friends' houses and whatever.

I think I'm discombobulated from moving, and I've been thinking about how different my life is at 46 from what I imagined it was going to be. 

I like my life. I like it a lot actually. It's just weird to live a life that's completely different from what I pictured and from what everyone else is doing.

I just ordered this book. Sounds interesting!