Saturday, August 16, 2008

What's important

Wow, this summer is going by fast. Between the rainy, rainy weather and a too-busy schedule, I feel as though I'm still waiting for it to start when it's nearly over. I’m at that stage in my life where the years are ticking off at a pace that’s a little scary. There’s a country song where an old man is being interviewed on his 100th birthday and his advice is “Don’t blink, 100 years goes faster than you think.” I’m not at the hundred year point yet and probably will never be but I've lived long enough to know that time is like beach sand slipping through the fingers and that the only evidence of it having ever been handled are a few clinging remains. When we think about that, we have to consider just what we want to have left on our hands and sticking to the soles of shoes when the summers of our lives are over. I, for one, have wasted more of my precious minutes than I like to admit, and there are few opportunities for do-overs. But despite the impediments to some of the grandiose plans I had for the summer, on reflection, I feel that this was one block of time that I spent well. Because I'm on my way to grad school as a full-time student, I've been aware that my schedule isn't going to have much leftover space for what remains my greatest life value - the relationships and shared love I have with a small group of wonderful individuals. This grieved my heart. I decided to schedule time with them, not necessarily doing anything fabulous (which I couldn't afford anyhow) but just basking in their auras in some way that was meaningful to each of us. I had the grandchildren over one by one and took two of them for an overnight during which we visited my sister, my niece and her children in New Hampshire then on to Lynn, Massachusetts see my mother for a few hours. I hadn't seen any of these people for several years. I spent a day running errands, shopping and watching a movie with one girlfriend, an afternoon picnic lunch with another, and attended a play with still another. I have a couple friends to go and just made a date to have lunch with my daughter, the already overbooked homeschooling mother of five of my grandchildren. It feels good to have achieved this and I have some pictures and reminders that I can post around my work station and refer to when slaving over assignments gets to be too much.


I did something else this summer. I actually made it through all 45 cds of the audio version of Atlas Shrugged, a 1084 page paperback I once attempted to read in about 1967. Very interesting, but I may talk about that in another blog.

Carol


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