I am missing “it”.
With change comes remembrance-at least for most, but usually not me. My memory is unpredictable-at best-and I have three theories about the why behind that:
#1-My mother dropped me on my head when I was an infant.
#2-My brothers convinced me to hold my breath until I passed out, doing permanent damage.
#3-I was born in an Army hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Need I say more?
With my faulty memory comes the need to reminisce via digital photos of bygone years. Today, as I scoured through old photos, I realized I was missing “it”.
And, here is what “it” is to me:
An excitement about life-a hopefulness for the future-a knowing that there is something amazing right around the corner.
This photo was taken shortly after selling one of our commercial properties, the Denver House.
Biceps and I were on our way to Europe for an entire month-just the two of us. I had my old manual camera-because, “By gawd, I wasn’t switching over to that new fangled digital type of photography”.
We had our backpacks, our passports, plenty of spending money and a plan.
Life was exciting. For the first time, we had more than enough in our bank accounts. Buying a car that wasn’t 15 years or more old was becoming a reality. We knew we could take on the world.
But before traipsing off to Europe, we chose to spend two weeks with both sets of our parents. We toodled around, checking out leaves, eating amazing food and just being a family.
It seemed like life was more exciting then-for all of us. But honestly, the only thing that has changed since then was my perception of life.
I was more excited about life at that time.
We still had issues. We lived in a part of town we desperately wanted to leave. We weren’t certain of Biceps’ band making it. My parent’s were seeing the end to their teaching careers and didn’t know what was next. The list goes on.
So, what I am going to do today is capture who this girl was and…
…transport her into this girl-who could stand to laugh more, to lean on God more and to realize life is what it’s going to be. And, I’d better get on board with joy.
I don’t want to miss “it” as I’m looking forward to the next “it”. Have you ever felt the same way-as if your excitement about life was missing? I’d love to hear about what you are doing to get it back.
Let’s inspire one another.
Maybe you should start a list of silly, fun things you want to do and start working through the list. Then you always have something like creating monsters with homemade playdough or signing up for a clown course at the local clown college, if you have one, to look forward too.
Enthusiasm was/is never a problem for me, but taking chances has been. Always the responsible one, the rock, and living to support or make others happy. I enjoy that role, but I think I need to be a little more “reckless” sometimes.
This is exactly what I need to do. Thanks so much for the idea. That and get pregnant. But, I can make a list on my own….
Yup. Totally get where you are coming from. Those days of galavanting around the world and living in sh#$ holes and being really, really, poor have a way of being exciting… it’s the in-between times that make you feel real…more alive… And posting revealing things about yourself in the internet will make you feel reckless…maybe that’s what we need to do… got any secrets you want to share with me…and the rest of the universe? Hmm??? or yes, getting pregnant definitely brings that heightened feeling of being alive. Until one starts whining his little bum off because his brother is listening to the Mp3 player and he suddenly realizes that he doesn’t have EXACTLY the same thing! And then, you want to drop both of them off on the side of the road and make them walk 2 miles home just so you won’t have to hear it anymore…
I think my mom said the same things about us-except it was a boombox. Good times….