31 and the Never Evers

I have officially been a member of this planet for 31 years. And over the course of these years I am pretty sure I have used the term "never ever" quite a lot. I know I said I would never ever marry a military man. I remember distinctly when I was told I would probably never ever have kids with out fertility drugs. As a teen I swore to myself I would never ever be like my parents. And quite a few people have promised they would never ever let me down.

But I did marry a military man.
My husband and I got a baby as a honeymoon present.
I found out being exactly like my parents is really the only way I want to be.
And
I have come to terms with the fact that people let you down.
I have begun to own up to the fact that I've let people down.

However, I am very lucky to have had the never evers I have had in my life.
They do nothing but teach you who you really are.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I wanted to leave school to be with her. I would never ever stay so far away with her being so sick. But then I was faced with her own "never ever allowing me to leave college", not even for cancer. Her never ever trumped mine. And I stayed in school. This alternately meant that I had to learn to lean on my friends, to believe in my mom, to depend on my Dad more than ever before and try to learn to let go of things I could not control.

As a one time vegetarian the "I will never ever eat meat" became a gift I gave up to my husband when he asked me to eat chicken for our baby and for his own piece of mind as he was deployed during our first pregnancy. It sealed the deal on us being a team first and foremost in our young marriage, something we have stayed true to through the last eight years.
  
I have said I would never ever do a pull up, buy a house before forty, drink a Naked Green Machine Smoothie.
I have thought I would never ever survive child birth with out drugs or living in Germany.

But I can do pull ups, I bought a house and  I love a tall glass of green machine with an extra squeeze of lemon.
I conquered a natural child birth (with my mom there to slap the crazy out of me) and living three years in a foreign country did the exact opposite of kill me.

And though not every "never ever" I have proven wrong has been a winner (I will never ever yell at my kids was recently turned into I will never ever again throw a Rumpelstiltskin-esq tantrum in my kitchen over my four year old refusing to swallow antibiotics- #notwinning) I stand by the advice to only cautiously bet on a never ever.

Especially when the never ever goes like this:
I will never ever forgive...
never ever love....
never ever say.....
never ever try......
Those are just begging to be broken.

Because, well, it feels better to forgive.
And all we need is love.
And say what you mean to say.
And how will you know if you don't try.

If you made a list of all the things you would never ever do- AND- made a list of all the things you would do if you found out you only had one month to live, I wonder how many things on both lists would overlap. 
And though getting a tattoo would overlap on my two lists I am probably not going to run out and get one tomorrow (notice the non definitive) it's important to understand the things you are truly scared of and the things you really just haven't gotten to yet.
(Pretty much sold on the too scared to skydive though.)

Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.

-Virgil Thomson