My own Doppleganger

So DH and I are sitting here watching repeats of How I Met Your Mother, and it's the episode where Lily says she and Marshal can't start TTC until they see the final doppelganger of their group - Barney's.  At the end of the episode, Ted is telling Robin how much they've all changed in the five years since they met her and said, "Look we've all been searching for the five doppelgangers, right? But eventually, over time, we all become our own doppelgangers, you know, these completely different people who just happen to look like us. "  And I have to say I am totally my own Doppelganger! 

Five years ago, I looked almost exactly the same... but Dec. 2006 I was working in television in Milwaukee. I had been single for about nine months after the end of a rebound relationship to get over another guy. I was convinced I would never find love. In fact I had told my friend if I hadn't met "the man of my dreams" by the time I was 35, I would you ART and donor sperm to have a kid! And had even started researching the costs online because I thought I'd have to save up over the next few years (was happy to learn it was more affordable then I thought). How funny life turns out, as I am getting ready for round three of ART with my husband of two and a half years.

I met Jeff six months before Dec. 2006, but just in passing as my BFF said "that's the guy I said you're going to marry."  I thought he looked a little "old".  LOL.  Then in mid Dec. she invited him out for my 29th birthday.  We had our first dance & first kiss that night.  And I thought he liked me...but he didn't ask for my number and weeks went by so I forgot about him again.  And just six months from then - the last weekend in June '07 we will meet again; and that time we'd never be apart again!  In between our first kiss and first actual date - I dated two other guys briefly, (*now referred to as drunk kid and poet boy) as well as had nine first dates in June from a dating website.  Man, am I glad I saw what was wrong with those eleven guys!!   They were not my true love...my Jeff.  My other half. 

But yes, I think I might still recognize myself even with all the changes if Kati v.2006 were to run into Kati v.2011.  The job, the everyday life, the loves....they may all be different now in some ways.  But deep down my doppelganger and I still have a lot in common aside from looks.  I still take baths as often as possible.  I still like to laugh in a relationship more than anything.  I still think the three greatest foods ever invented are cheese, bacon, and peanut butter.  And I still believe I was put on this earth to be a mom.  I hope that five years from now I can look back at this time in my life, but with a four year old in my lap - and laugh at how again I am my own doppelganger.  And at all the ways I've changed....and yet still stayed the same.