This past weekend was yet another reunion. That makes three this summer – two this month. I watched four cousins – men – playing a game they play every reunion. After listening to the stories at lunch about their escapades on the farm when they were young, I tried to picture those men as young boys as they played the game.
Nope.
All I could conjure up was an image of four boys playing – one getting knocked off the back of a cow as she exited the barn, one riding the pigs, another stacking bales on the rack and all playing baseball together at the family reunion.
We all change. Each and every experience in our lives contributes to that change and helps make us who we are today. There is a saying, “And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count…the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away.”
Some of those moments are monumental; some sneak in and out with hardly a notice. Sometimes we make conscious choices. Sometimes stuff just happens to us.
Several years ago I made a conscious choice that has added a whole new dimension to who I am. Metaphorically I had always lived my life in the lower meadows. The enchanting serenity of the cool breeze through the wide brimmed trees, the scent of lush green pastures and the parade of colorful wildflowers gave me an aura of contentment and comfort. But, I found out that all is not roses even in a Disney-like fairy tale life in the meadows.
It was then that I decided to open the gates to the upper meadows; to scale the rocky paths. It was then that I decided to venture among the gnarled pines. The pines that exist because they fought their way to life through the impenetrable soil and survived the harsh winds and ice of countless winters so they can live poised, looking out at a vista that literally takes your breath away.
Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” I too, like that traveler, took the one less traveled by.
Every day I know that today is the first day of the rest of my life. I am me. I exist.
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” That was written by the French philosopher Heri Bergson.
I am a collage of experiences. Flashes of colors and sounds from the past create who I am today. With each new experience, color or sound, who I am continues to change and mature.
I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother, sister, friend and teacher. I am a product of Catholic schools, a Master of education, a chocolate lover, and outdoors person – if it’s not too hot, too cold, too windy, too humid or too wet – a reader, a music lover, a hater of math, a lover of mankind, a hater of incompetence, an observer, an eater of life.
I exist.
I am me.
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This past weekend was yet another reunion. That makes three this summer – two this month. I watched four cousins – men – playing a game they play every reunion. After listening to the stories at lunch about their escapades on the farm when they were young, I tried to picture those men as young boys as they played the game.
Nope.
All I could conjure up was an image of four boys playing – one getting knocked off the back of a cow as she exited the barn, one riding the pigs, another stacking bales on the rack and all playing baseball together at the family reunion.
We all change. Each and every experience in our lives contributes to that change and helps make us who we are today. There is a saying, “And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count…the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away.”
Some of those moments are monumental; some sneak in and out with hardly a notice. Sometimes we make conscious choices. Sometimes stuff just happens to us.
Several years ago I made a conscious choice that has added a whole new dimension to who I am. Metaphorically I had always lived my life in the lower meadows. The enchanting serenity of the cool breeze through the wide brimmed trees, the scent of lush green pastures and the parade of colorful wildflowers gave me an aura of contentment and comfort. But, I found out that all is not roses even in a Disney-like fairy tale life in the meadows.
It was then that I decided to open the gates to the upper meadows; to scale the rocky paths. It was then that I decided to venture among the gnarled pines. The pines that exist because they fought their way to life through the impenetrable soil and survived the harsh winds and ice of countless winters so they can live poised, looking out at a vista that literally takes your breath away.
Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” I too, like that traveler, took the one less traveled by.
Every day I know that today is the first day of the rest of my life. I am me. I exist.
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” That was written by the French philosopher Heri Bergson.
I am a collage of experiences. Flashes of colors and sounds from the past create who I am today. With each new experience, color or sound, who I am continues to change and mature.
I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother, sister, friend and teacher. I am a product of Catholic schools, a Master of education, a chocolate lover, and outdoors person – if it’s not too hot, too cold, too windy, too humid or too wet – a reader, a music lover, a hater of math, a lover of mankind, a hater of incompetence, an observer, an eater of life.
I exist.
I am me.
