I've had the opportunity in the past week or so to be reminded once again that life, even at its best, is a series of mountaintop "highs" and the "lows" of the deepest abyss you have ever encountered. And with the "note to self" check that our lives can turn on that "proverbial dime", I have been humbly given that "whack upside the head" from God that you should never take anything in THIS life for granted.
I bet you are just like me or at least pretty dang close. You know how we humans are~we get up in the morning and grumble about the alarm going off when we'd rather just sleep in. We make our way to breakfast, get ready for work/kids out the door to school, and head to our jobs or other business. Our lives seem so predictable and the day goes along just like all the others do, until all of a sudden something changes for us and the change isn't always so welcome.
Perhaps you are the worker who thought you had it made when the new factory came to town and offered you a pretty decent job~and today, of all days, you were handed the "pink slip" right before the holidays. Maybe you are the newly retired civil servant, a motorcycle enthusiast, who was just heading out to meet your friends for breakfast. Only instead of sitting amongst fellow retirees at the local, struggling small town cafe, you find yourself being airlifted to a nearby hospital after crashing your bike. You might be the only caregiver for elderly parents, a member of the "sandwich generation" who freely gives of their time to make sure that the people who loved them enough to raise them up, are given the same care, dignity and respect that they SHOULD be given. Or you could even be like someone I know~doing something as simple as riding a bike, only instead of cruising safely into your own driveway you end up trying to jump a curb in your own front yard. The end result? Broken bones that take forever to heal, 9 months in a cast, and the permanent nickname of "old lefty".
I was helping out in a sixth grade math class at school a day or so ago and I noticed that the worksheet that they were doing listed the average life expectancy for someone in the U.S. to be 78 years. Before going any further, I have to say this~I don't sit around dwelling on the fact that I'm getting older and that sooner or later my time, just like your's, will run out. It's a given and a part of our lives that cannot be changed by me. But what I CAN change is the manner in which I use the remaining time that I've been given. I sit here tonight at the dining room table in my humble abode here in south central Kansas, feeling ever more determined to press onward with accomplishing the "bucket list" wishes that still remain for me. And until I can try no longer, well, I'm just going to keep trying. Oh dear friends~please, will you do the same? Choose one thing this very night that you have been forever wishing to do. Write it down on a piece of paper, place it somewhere that it can be seen often by you. Think about what it means to you to be able to do it and THEN, for crying out loud see to it that it gets done! I promise you, all of you, that you will have no regrets whatsoever for having done it. The only regrets you will have are the ones that come from NOT doing it.
I decided to repost a blog entry from late May of this year, upon completion of my #1 bucket list goal in life, "To travel to Maine and see a lighthouse for the very first time". I hope you don't mind rereading it. Six months later, my resolve is the same. 4,000 hard miles of driving and $700 spent to get there were worth it and THEN SOME and for the first time in life, I may have actually "lived" it.
Sorry to have to send this in two posts. My apologies for the length of this blog post. LOL~I won't feel offended if you need a nap at the half-way point. Reprint of May 30th blog, coming next.
No comments:
Post a Comment