I had some time a couple weeks ago, after surgery and before spending all my "free" time on the new website, to scan in a bunch of old photos that hadn't seen the light of the digital photography age. There was a bunch on there from high school, youth groups, camp and just general life B.C. meaning, Before Children.
It was...diffferent...looking through all those old pics, remembering the dreams attached to that girl in them.
I look at pics of me now and I don't recognize myself as the same person. It's like one day I walked into this new world and decided to hit pause on the old one and see where this journey takes me for awhile. I feel like I am in the wardrobe, living a life I never dreamed about and thinking that someday, the old one will be available to return too. When did I grow up? Aren't I still only 18? I couldn't really be this old...where has the time gone?
The last 10 years have been effortless, they've gone by without any help from me. Life has seemed to glide on this path that we have just followed. There have been the hills, the valleys, the deep dark trenches, and the mountains of hope that we keep climbing. We have swam in oceans of happiness, skated across frozen ponds of desperation and clawed our way through the toughest of jungles. There has seemingly been no question of where we would go or where we will end up, just each day arriving like the last with not option to pause, rewind, or fast forward. Just the sun rising and falling, another day blooming, and our feet inevitably continuing, are feet just keep moving along and we make sure we pick up whatever gear may be along the way for whatever this path may throw at us next.
Every now and then I come upon a meadow where I can see all around me, the people walking next to me, and realize - This is where I am right now. This is where life has brought me. Dreams are meant for childhood. These beings around me are the real and wonderful part of the hear and now. Who can dream and foresee this wonderment? What child can fathom the journey we have been on. Youth allows you to see snippets of little pictures between the treetops leaves. Pictures that will show you how great life can be, the amazing view of what is all out there and what is just yours for the taking. Snippets that make you take those first steps away from the nest and plunge down into the journey called life or soar among the treetops. Youth makes you brave enough to start...life takes you on a path that slowly reveals more of the bigger picture...it throws you the curves and the forks in the road so you can see that life is more than those little pictures.
So Seize the day, Enjoy the journey, Stop and smell the roses, Follow the path laid out in front of you. My life isn't what I dreamed it would be but I couldn't tell you where I would be now if I had made different choices. I do know I probably wouldn't like it as much as I am loving this. Memories and pictures are the map we are creating as we continue to follow the path. Not so that we can find our way back but so we can tell the people along the way what happened in the journey.
