Uniform

As I drop my daughter at one of the many schools she and her siblings have attended over the past 13 years (I have never had two kids in the same school), I see girls of all ages wearing the school uniform I remember so clearly from 11 years ago--when we turned it down. I remember my tears as I wrote the "no, thank you" letter. I remember my realization a few years later that my son might not have existed had we been paying for private school. I remember my relief when I became unemployed that at least we would not have to think about changing the kids' schools (as we might have had to do if we could no longer afford tuition). It appears that the decision I cried over all those years ago turned out to be a lucky one--at least for us.
 
I can't help it--seeing the uniform still makes me gasp, just a little. It makes me think of all the "might have beens." These days, though, it also reminds me of the "how it is," which, honestly, is pretty good. Is it how it was "meant to be"? Hard to say--can we ever really know what was "meant to be"? More often, we just roll with what is, our challenge being to embrace our choices and the effects of those choices. Each choice makes the next just a little bit different. Each choice makes our lives anything but uniform.
 
I'm not sure what life would have been like had we chosen those little blue jumpers all those years ago. All I know is that I dropped off my daughter at a school where she is happy. And at the end of the day, I returned from a job to my three kids, grateful that our life is how it is. Not uniform. But pretty good.