How You Live

     It seems the older I get the less I sweat the small stuff. A few weeks back, at my woman's bible study, we were talking about our dreams. We talked about what they were when we were little and as we got older. Memories poured back to me about my childhood and dreaming of the big white house with the white picket fence. I wanted lots of kids and a rich husband. I can't say I thought "rich" at the time, but I just remember everything being white, sunny and perfect. All our needs and wants met. I wanted the Cinderella story.
     After Jay and I got married, our dreams were watching him climb the corporate ladder and getting a bigger house. Our family grew to 3, 4 and then 5 and we had the cutest bungalow on the block. I often could catch myself drifting to that thought of something more - bigger, better, prettier.
     Now, in my late 40's, life has brought us a few blows, but I find contentment. I have 3 beautiful, healthy, well-adjusted (most of the time ;-)) adult children. Our house, it's a little bigger, but much more empty. I shared with my bible study group the reality that hit me after my mother passed away. My sister and I went to clean out her room. She had lived in a nursing home for 15 years following a very debilitating stroke. My mother was the wife of an Air Force Colonel. We lived in an affluent neighborhood. My father and mother always drove a new car. She had her hair done weekly and pretty much purchased whatever she wanted. I remember my father complaining about their $300/month house payment at one time. Jay and I still don't make the income that my father did back in the 1970's. When we went to clean out my mother's room, it all fit into one small box that fit in the trunk of my sister's car. It was sobering!
     I hope that when my kids look back, after I'm gone - and they put that box in the trunk of their car, they'll remember how I lived. I hope they won't remember a woman who "wanted" but  woman who lived a life devoted to God and found great peace there.
When Jay asked my dad for my hand, my dad told him that he needed to enjoy every moment because that's all life was - "a moment long."

Turn up the music
Turn it up loud
Take a few chances
Let it all out
You won't regret it
Lookin' back from where you have been
Cuz it's not who you knew
And it's not what you did
It's how you live