Enjoy the Journey
I was driving home from my Mom’s house tonight. She is recovering from major back surgery. To my surprise she is doing really well. Her color has come back, she is up and moving around. She even walked up Memory Grove the other day with Clark. I am very happy that she is on the road to recovery.
Today I have been on the edge since I woke up. On the edge of what, I am not sure. But its a feeling that comes from not enough sleep. While at my Mom’s house I was thumbing through a gift catalogue that has lots of books and fun ideas for reading and nicknacks. There was a book listed by an author that describes her writing about the life of an elderly woman, aging and living. Most novels include the beginning of stories – the story of a romance, a story of a marriage, a story of an adventure. Most books don’t start with the beginning of the end. The synopsis talks about the realization of aging and learning to let go of fear and live fully with the onset of death so quickly coming. That small paragraph, written to coerce an onlooker to purchase the short book, really struck me today. I am 31 years old, I have three beautiful children, a loving husband, a house, a refrigerator full of food. I always want to loose ten pounds, but for the most part really love who I am. I feel insanely busy, like every other young mother that I know, I feel deeply connected to my children, and always wish there was another hour to finish that last project, to talk longer to my daughter, to hug my son, or cradle my infant, to be more passionate with my husband, to read my scriptures more diligently, to complete my visiting teaching, to actually cook a meal, to pay the bills, to clean up my eye brows, etc. etc. etc. etc. The list never seems to end.
One day, I am going to wake up, and its going to be me writing about how to learn to live when you are 80, and staring at the years of life choices that have created my reality. It’s going to be wishing that I had just captured more fully that moment, that floating, flitting, fleeting bubble of time, and now that I am eighty, I might as well really live.
My thought tonight, why not do that right now? This very moment, making a decision to let down my hair, to love myself unconditionally, with an extra ten pounds. To enjoy fully that chocolate chip cookie, that I really do love to make with my kids, to embrace and love the ability to exercise, to consume whole, rich and healthy foods. Why don’t I cast off fear right now? And love who I am today? Yes my life is crazy, my floors need to be vacuumed, my closets are not organized, my checkbook is not balanced. My dreams are big, my passions are deep. I am deeply flawed when I am tired. But dang it! I have a wonderful life, and it is worth living fully, right now, for the people who I am blessed to associate with today.
In one year, in ten years, in twenty years, nearly everyone in my immediate circle of influence, with the exception of my family could change. What am I doing today to bring joy to those around me? How am I making their life a better place to be? What am I doing today that will testify of this decision when I am 80? Grandma Joy is 84 this year. Her life screams, “don’t throw a fit about hard things, whose life would it bless?” Is that a hard pill to swallow? Yes. Yes it is. Is it good advice? Yes, yes it is. Whose life would you bless? Whose LIFE will you bless. Life means living and living starts today.
