Time Flies

One summer, I remember being particularly bored and actually ready for school to begin again (don't judge, I get excited about school supplies too) and was whining to whoever was within ear shot about how bored I was and how slowly time was moving.
My grandfather, whom I adored, informed me that a week to me was a year to him. As an 8ish year old, it wasn't really a profound statement, although I remember my mom standing nearby and being in complete disbelief, and amazingly so agreement. I thought they were both crazy. Now I know why. Well, I don't know why they were crazy, I'm not sure a psychologist could even answer that question, but I understand the disbelief.

*It's hard to believe I've been at TTU for almost 2 years. I'll finish my second year and 5th (thanks to summer school) semester in December.

*I'll be 33 in September.

*John and I will celebrate our 13th Anniversary in December.

*The puppy that John gave me for my birthday, just before our 2nd anniversary, will be 11 years old this year.

*My other furry baby will be 10.

*My grandfather has been gone for 8 years this October. He would be 90 on Halloween.

*My grandmother 6 in January. She would be 82 in October.

*They would have been married 64 years this year.

*My niece will turn 12 in August. I remember when she was just a toddler with little blonde ringlets.

*Her brother turned 9 last month. I remember when he was born.

* I remember my stepsister telling everyone else that she was pregnant, but avoided telling me because she knew how devastated I would be, because at the time John and I were pursuing infertility treatments to have our own child. I remember tears running down my checks when she finally called and told me that she was having a baby in just 3 short months. I sat in the floor of our bedroom and cried when we hung up.

*I remember the day that John and I agreed that we couldn't keep doing treatments. It was only yesterday, but actually it was 6 years ago.

*I've been at the same job, since we moved for 4 years last month.

*My 15 year high school reunion is next year.

*I remember when I had to by hair dye because my husband informed me that I had several gray hair patches. That was last week, his funeral will be soon...I just have to find him first.

It's funny how the older we get our perceptions and our perspectives change. I have an amazing friend (who I'm quite sure we are sisters and were separated at birth, because she is the only other person I have found who doesn't like the milk after cereal has contaminated it, along with a variety of other freaky similarities) who is currently fighting cancer. Her oldest child, who is absolutely adorable and brilliant (no, I'm not biased), was born 2 months early. Her perception of time is probably vastly different than mine. Although I'm sure that there are moments that time passes us both by faster and slower than we would like it too, yet, we both grasp that it's moving way to quickly when it comes to the grand scheme of things.

There are plans and choices that we are making in our life right now that have a expiration date on them. Once we begin in order to reach our desired end result, we have to commit to spending 2 years on the process. Right now that seems like a dreadful length of time to wait, especially for something as special as the end result would be to both of us. Yet, there are other things going on in my life that I want to give a chance too as well (I would elaborate more, but we are avoiding all parents, family, friends, and people who actually know us, so that we can be completely happy with this choice and have no regrets later on down the road to elaborate now), so that a prior option that wasn't an option might actually be an option.

And if you understood any of that you deserve some sort of medal. Because I wrote it, I knew what I was talking about and I don't understand any of it. You're Welcome.

My point (which was lost about 3 paragraphs ago), was how time keeps ticking away whether we want it to or not. And my grandfather, he was right. When your waiting for something big, 2 years will seem like a lifetime, yet when your just trucking along trying to finish college, 2 years will seem like yesterday.

So the question remains, what will you regret in a year that you didn't start doing today?

Opportunity of a Lifetime

So yesterday sometime a week or two ago (oops) you got the background story on the Dean's List.

Let me give you the story on the Congressional Internship that I was invited to participate in.

So I get this email from someone telling me about this internship in Washington, DC where you work with a member of congress for a semester as an intern.

It's a big deal, you live in a house with other interns from the same college and you all work on Capital Hill for a whole semester. How freaking cool is that?

Really cool.

It's so cool that I debated, and I wondered and I tried to imagine what kind of opportunities would be opened up to me if I were to apply and be selected. Because even though they sent me the email, I still had to apply and be accepted to get selected to go.

Then I prayed about it. Then I told my husband. Then I told everyone on facebook about it. And how I wasn't going.

What?!?!

It's the chance of a lifetime, it's the opportunity of a lifetime. Just not mine. Part of me would have liked to have gone, just for the experience. Plus to have lived in Washington DC for a semester, and played tourist on the weekends to all the fabulous places nearby, it would have been wonderful. It would have been breathtaking. But I couldn't imagine doing all of that stuff without John. I couldn't imagine giving up my life here, for a temporary life there. I couldn't imagine putting all my heart into it, when it wouldn't be.

It's the opportunity of a lifetime for someone else. Some other student at Tech has dreamed about this internship. They want it so bad that they can taste it. I know how that feels. I know how it feels to want something so badly, to have dreamed about it, to have planned your life around it, that when the opportunity slips through your fingers you wonder what just happened. Your entire existence is questioned, every plan, every dream, everything is suddenly very different than the life you wanted. It's hard having to pick up and move forward from that. It's hard to give up on something that you want that badly.

And deep down, when I had that realization, I knew that I couldn't take that dream away from someone else. I couldn't do it because it would be a good opportunity for me, but my heart just wasn't in it. I wanted to go for purely selfish reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual internship. My heart wouldn't have been in the internship. Sure, I would have still worked my butt off, but it's different when your heart isn't in it. There's no passion, there's no joy, it's just mundane and routine. And life's to short to have given up 5 months of my life for something that my heart wasn't fully into, when there was another student whose heart is set on going.

It's the opportunity of a lifetime, just not mine.

Loyalty

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes "they" are right.

I can't say or do anything that honors this soldier and his family more than this simple picture.

Dog Mourns

Today, on a random Monday, its important to remember those soldiers and their families who sacrifice their lives, their son's, their daughter's, their wives, their fathers, and their mothers, so that we can experience a freedom that so many others can only dream of.

Read the article, then tell me that animals are incapable of feeling a loss and of feeling love. If you can, then you can't be human.

A Dose of Perspective

The news here has been flooded with talks and videos and pictures of the Navy Seals that were killed in Afghanistan over the weekend.

I'm not big on the political scene. I think that there is a ton of room for improvement in all areas of our government. It shouldn't just be about getting the votes, it should be about doing what's right, morally and ethically for our country. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms.

Yet today, I just can't imagine how the hole that those 30 lives have left, not only to their families, but to our country. To a certain extent I think that we have forgotten the devastation that our country felt on September 11th. I think that we have forgotten the men and women who put their names, and let's face it, often their lives on the line so that you can stand in line at Starbucks instead of having a drill Sargent yell at you. They gave their life so that you might have that privilege. Makes that $4 cup of coffee suddenly a whole lot more expensive.

The youngest cousin of John's, due to some road blocks had to forgo his plans of becoming a police officer. He had decided that he was going to join the Navy and train to become a seal. Frankly, I was terrified. Their job is dangerous. Very dangerous. They have tons of training to prepare them, but it's still scary to the family waiting at home for them. So when he decided to join the coast guard, because as he put it "God didn't make me to kill people, but to save them". Knowing Matt the way that I do, I agree completely. I couldn't imagine him taking another person's life, no matter what the situation was.

So today, instead of complaining about how hot it is, and how my air conditioner struggles to keep up, how tired I am, how big my problems are. I'm going to think of those 30 Americans. I'm going to think of their families as they try to put their lives back together. I'm going to think of the tables that will have an empty chair at dinner. I'm going to think about the families who have lost a son, a father, a husband, a friend, and I'm going to be thankful that they are so very willing to step up and give the ultimate sacrifice so that my life can be what it is today.

Where were you?

Do you remember where you were 9 years ago today?

I was headed to work, I had just pulled into the parking lot when the announcer on the radio said that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

At that point, it just seemed like a freak accident, really bad, really sucky luck for those on the airplane, and in the building. Yet an hour later, and it wasn’t so accidental, when a second plane crashed into the other tower. I was standing in the break room at work with the TV on and about a dozen of us watched as the second plane hit. I can’t even begin to describe the disbelief and shock as I watched that second plane.

I’m not overly patriotic, but today, I’m afraid that the majority of us have forgotten. On one hand we needed to forget in order to be able to move forward. Because whether or not we wanted it too, life went on. We got up and we went to work, and to the grocery store, and to pick up the dry cleaning, because, as much of a cliché as it is, life goes on.

I was pleased to see that the city in which I live, some businesses chose to let their respect for those people who died on those airplanes, and in the towers, as well as all of the soldiers that we have lost in the last 9 years. Yet there were some, that just couldn’t let go of the need to support the local, rather large universities football game that evening. They flew flags representing the university.

While I remember where I was, to a certain extent I have even forgotten. I live in West Texas, which is thousands of miles away from New York and Pennsylvania. While my life was forever changed that day, my life wasn’t as affected as those who lost family and friends that day. I can’t imagine how different there lives are, and you can guarantee that they haven’t forgotten, they have to live without those people everyday for the rest of their lives.

Tell me we haven’t forgotten, when this city was too worried about supporting the local football team instead of remembering that, 1. America isn’t immune and 2. The countless lives that were lost on that day, the day that will have the same effect on our history, just as Pearl Harbor had on our grandparents’ history.

It’s unfortunate that it takes a tragedy to remind people of what is really important.

~ This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. ~Elmer Davis

~ Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

~ It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. ~Author unknown
~ Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall. ~John Dickinson

Life Changing

Something is seriously "off" with me. Twice in the last few months, I have felt compelled to send a message to "friends" on facebook. And I've followed through. Better check me for a fever.

I'm not an outgoing person. I don't like the attention and when all these eyeballs are looking at me, I begin to stutter and stammer and second guess every word that comes out of my mouth. Until I get to know you, then I don't shut up. I just don't do well with people I don't know. And these "friends" I don't really know anymore. One of them, I worked with many moons ago. She had been on my mind when I wasn't on Facebook, so I sent her a message. And we talked for hours one morning. There was alot going on in her life, a lot that she was struggling with. The funny thing is - she helped me more than I could have possibly helped her.

The second message, sent just yesterday, was directed to someone I went to high school with. Which was ?? ago. What? You didn't think I would reveal my true age did you. (Hint look at blog title) I haven't seen her in that long, nor talked to her. So I don't really "know" her anymore. I sent her a message too. I didn't even proofread it for fear I would change my mind.

Lately I have struggled, again, when having a baby. I whined to the doctor about it on Tuesday, I whined to my husband, and my dogs. Guess what?!? I'm..still not having a baby. I've been unhappy, and I have let this problem become larger and more in charge than it should. I have let it rule my happiness. My sanity. While it has every right too, require thought, it shouldn't rule my life.

The doctor suggested that I make up a list of things that I hated about my life. Things that if I ruled the world I would change. So I started naming things - like my weight, my unhappiness, I came up with 5 things. One of which was the child I long for. Did you know that all of those things but one are within my control to do something about? All of them. I can go on a diet, I can exercise, I can manage my time better. All of those are within my control. All it takes is effort on my part. Faith. Faith in me mostly.

She also suggested that I write a letter. A letter to the child I miscarried, and a letter to the child I haven't conceived. A letter that "lets them go". Just like when my grandparents died, I have to let that baby go. I have to grieve. I have to experience the loss and then move on. Move on. It's hard. It's scary. It's something I don't want to give up on.

The high school friend said something about praying "Lord, your will be done" and "Lord, when will". I can so relate to that. When we were first trying to get pregnant it was, if we are meant to have a baby, then let it happen. The more time passed it became when will I get pregnant. When did I lose faith? When I got tired, because I wasn't getting the results I wanted in Abby Time. I forgot about God's plan, about His bigger picture. About being right where He wanted me to be.

Last night I had an epiphany. Brace yourselves. This is big.

I realized that maybe, just maybe, I have dealt with all of this, suffered through it all it, so that for these two people, I could use my pain, to help them deal with theirs. To help them remain faithful. To help them, help me. God has plans for me. Plans so great that I can't even begin to imagine them. Plans that I'm excited to learn about. Plans that may or may not be the things I want for myself.

I had wanted to change their lives, their perspectives, and instead they ended up changing mine.





~The best way to change your life is to change someone else. ~Author unknown

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away.""
~ Abraham Lincoln