Know Your Way Home

I sense the world is different. A paradigm shift in the Memory Makers.

I miss believing the illusion and comfortable arrogance of someday having my turn at circling a calendar date with the whens and wheres of retirement, and heading into the sunset with colors flying high.

It was different back then, wasn't it?

I miss the days of unending promise before I knew what old money was, and why it was important. I never wanted to learn why it was foolhardy to believe in the unlimited potential for new money.

         The Generation of Change,
               with blinkers to the right,
                   are sliding into the slow lane.

How can that be?

It seemed like such a never-ending life of busyness and energized chaos, with years flowing along like a river, and suddenly, unexpectedly the family was grown and gone.

So many wonderful things now.

A beautiful friendship that blossoms is easier to spot through the weeds than it used to be. Nobody really cares if I wear hats to the grocery store and put my feet in the fountain or stay in to finish that novel I've been obsessing about.

I hear the lessons of my parents clearer, and I realize I learned more than I thought I did.

Love has bloomed late in life and taken me on adventures I only imagined. What a great reminder that living every piece of your life is important, even the parts you didn't know where there. The beautiful tapestry of life is full and rich for those unafraid to start and fail, and start again.

I sit pondering all of this, and what makes a family strong.

Resiliency, I'd say. Fostering love and dispelling hate, facing loss and uncertainty, and pulling together no matter what.

Being open to new people even knowing they will change the family forever.

Believing in the stories and folklore, and the people who remind you where you come from.

Living life as a world traveler, exploring and learning and trying life on, but always knowing your way home.

But in the end, it is all about Love.