I often see myself as the youth that I no longer am. My body just won't agree with the ideas and fantasies my mind conjures. Every now and then the collision between what I envision and desire, and what I can feasibly do is like the bloodiest of trainwrecks inside of me. They leave me wanting to run away from all the age induced limits I have let creep up on me. I want to scream for it all to stop. It isn't that I can't accept those limits, it's just that they set themselves upon me while I wasn't watching. I blinked and all those things I wanted to do, I can't do anymore. It's a Niagra Falls of time rushing away underneath me. If I look down, I can see it flying past, but I have other things to do, so I don't notice it till I need that bucket of youth that was floating in the rushing waters and then it is so far gone I can never reach it again.
I'm feeling it now. I don't know what triggered it, some country song no doubt. When listening to country music, I quite often remember some wild dream I once had to live on a Texas Ranch when I was old enough to move away from home. I wanted to ride horses, drive an old beat up pickup down dusty roads and sit on a rough hewn fence watching the sun set after working with the horses and cattle all day. Now, when I think about such things, while in reality I could do some of those things someday, the romantic notions of finding myself a cowboy are gone and the fun, hot, summer nights notion are long gone. I don't really miss those ideas, but the fact that there is no going back, bothers me. I know I had my whole life before me at some point. But I can't remember when that was.
I want to move. Both physically and emotionally. I want to go for a long walk, but it's too late at night. I want to pack up and move to places I've never lived. Adventure, change, a move out of my complacency. Anything...something. I have an excuse for it all. Why can't we live more simply? Why do we let THINGS tie us down so that we can't fulfill our dreams?
It's after 10 pm. It's been pouring rain. I wish more than anything that I was in California right now where it is 2 hours earlier. Where was I at 8 pm here? What was I doing? Why did I let that time go by? I love sunsets, but so often I MISS them. I get busy and miss them. I hate that. It's time wasted and it will be another day before I have the chance to see it again. Another day to get so wrapped up in the living that I forget to LIVE.
Life is too beautiful to waste. Something about being outdoors makes me feel alive, but so much of our living is done indoors these days. I feel cooped up. The family is hot and wants the A/C on. I want to turn on a fan or two and throw open the windows and doors! I want to hear birds and feel the breeze, the sunshine-yes, even the hot sunshine. Breathing in the outdoors is like breathing LIFE. It is the breath of God. The very air He created. And it is full of all the sounds of life.
I doubt I could ever afford it, but the only place I have ever heard of having an open house year round is in Hawaii. I had a friend that lived there and she had large glass wall/doors that she could slide open. No screens. Just fresh ocean breezes blowing through her house. The smell of plumeria heavy in the air in the evenings. They had an occasional gecko come visiting, but they weren't so unwelcome.
I had the chance to go to Hawaii once. When I was young and stupid. Why is youth wasted on the young? I went-for 2 weeks. I was high the entire time. I barely remember it. Why did I do that? Wasted time. Wasted! I would kick myself if I were still limber enough. Of all the things in the world I could have done! I wasted the opportunity of a lifetime! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! If only I could redo those stupid years. Why didn't someone tell me I would wake up one day and it would all be gone? Why? Because I wouldn't have listened.
Teens make their own choices and we are at some point powerless to do anything about it. Tell your kids, tell them. Not to "not do such and such" but to know and remember, that life slips by unnoticed, and EVERY choice they make, they will have to live with later on. They will choose. No matter what you do, they will make both good and bad choices. You have to let them too. You have to just let go and let them choose. The best thing you can do is to show them how good LIFE is. Drugs, sex, alcohol, pleasures of the present, are not LIVING. They erase life, they snuff life out, and they leave you with regrets-things you CAN NOT change or undo. You have to show them the alternative. Hike with them. Camp with them. Go see the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, New York City, the beach all the places that represent life and or the Creator of life. Places that inspire awe. See Civil War battlefields, military graveyards, the Alamo, places where people lived, then died, or places that represent people who gave their lives. Have fun with your kids. Fill your home with laughter. Find positive things in your kids and tell them those things often. Don't dwell on a bunch of rules or housework. It will be there when they are gone. Show them how to LIVE! Stand at the edge of a lake and watch the sun rise or set together. Get a telescope and go find a hill in the country to star gaze. Inspire them to find the Creator. Show them how to find Him. Help them to find oneness with the One who created them.
Isn't that what we are all longing for anyway?
