I’m halfway obsessed with how quickly time seems to pass. I
say it so often I’m starting to annoy myself. My sincerest apologies to all
those who’ve had to suffer along side of me due to my continuous ramblings. I don’t think it’s ever felt the way it
does now, but I am willing to be wrong on that.
My niece turns two on Sunday, and my nephew was just born
this past May. My grandmother is slowly losing her sight, and not so slowly her
ability to drive, even cook. Maybe it’s that I’m surrounded by life at it’s
beginning and life in the end simultaneously. I find myself celebrating and
grieving for both sides. Celebrating the years of wisdom and life in my
grandmother and the hope of a beautiful and blessed future full of surprises
for those little kiddos. At the same time, I cannot help but mourn with my
grandmother as she deals with the loss of physical ability and memory – and
those beautiful little ones at the life they face, the family struggle that
they have been born into. I fear we may never escape the teeter-totter of joy
and sorrow in life. I’m not sure we were designed that way.
Perhaps it is more than the comparison of old and young. It
seems to move beyond the physical body and tangible change.
I am not the same that I was 4 years ago, 2 years ago. I
worry less and share more. I think a little less, and feel much deeper. It’s
still strange that while so much can change, there are some things that seem to
never. I am comforted by that. I used to worry about becoming someone entirely
new, someone I’d have to re-learn all over. Myself and I, we’ve learned a lot
about each other and it helps to remind yourself who are you from time to time.
Just as with my family, I celebrate and grieve with myself –
the losses and gains. As a child and even the early stage of adulthood I knew
myself as an independent forerunner. I wanted to find my own life, maybe run my
own company. I thought I was different, and found little to no shame or
insecurity in that. If only I could write down all of my silly daydreams of
success and loneliness. I made it glamorous, not to worry. Every guy I dated has his pros, but for one reason or another, they never caused me to toss those
dreams aside.
I was safe in my chosen life. No one had to know my faults,
because of course if they did, they might freak out and leave.
Until more recently, I had accepted it all. And now, I’ve tossed those lovely
childish dreams aside for something, someone, infinitely better. Words truly
cannot begin to express how my wonderful man has been a catalyst for so much change
in me. Without his encouragement and commitment I am so sure I would not be
where I am today. Feeling completely humbled daily by how his character and
heart allows me to grow hardly describes just what kind of impact it has made.
I believe more than anything that God placed him in my life because he made him
to be right for me and ultimately, He’d be able to refine me in and because of
our relationship.
Weeee how times change! It is still strange to watch that
old part of me dwindle in the distance and honestly believe that life is actually better with someone to share
it with. I find much more joy for what is to come and the grief that dwindles
pales in the comparison.
Time passes, that is still true. It continues on it’s own
path regardless of how mine causes me to view it. I’ll take pictures when it
seems to fly, and count my blessings when it continues to move me through the dryer
patches in life.
