Living in the Now

    NaBloPoMo asks whether I connect more with the past, the present, or the future.  The answer to that question really wasn’t that hard for me to muddle through.

 

     When I was growing up I looked toward the future with bright eyes and high hopes.  I believed that dreams could come true for me and that anything was possible.  I was optimistic and had high hopes.  I had both of my parents and they were my biggest cheerleaders and support system.  I will admit they were my best friends, and I clung to them and enjoyed their company.

      Then they both died, one by one, and I was left in a tailspin completely devastated.  Right after each of their deaths I desperately clung to the past afraid to move on for fear I would lose them entirely.  I didn’t want to get rid of their things.  I didn’t want to put away their pictures.  I couldn’t stay away from the cemetery.  I was pathetic.  My mother’s death rocked me to my core.  By the time my dad died I was aware that the day would come when he wouldn’t be here.  I wasn’t in denial.  I knew it was a possibility and when he died I let him go.

      Now that I have been through their deaths, a divorce, and the loss of a much anticipated baby, I tend to lock the past in a special place and live in the now rarely taking it out to dust it off and contemplate.  I don’t look toward the future.  I don’t dream.  I take life as it comes, be happy with the blessings I have, and live one day at a time letting God have control of my life.  It is just easier that way.  I have finally figured out how to be happy in my own skin and quit mourning things I can do nothing about.   I choose to connect with the present because the past is gone and the future has yet to be written.  It is my way to move on and keep on living the best I can.

Rainbow Connection- BFF 203

     When my daughter was little and first discovering the wonders of crayons, she didn’t have a favorite color in the box.  She loved them all.  I would supply her with a big box of Crayola Crayons and countless color books.  I always loved to color and looked forward eagerly to coloring in my own color book right alongside of her.  I looked forward exuberantly to recapturing my youth again with both hands.  I simply could not wait for the days when we could color and play games together.  I looked forward to sitting on the floor and playing with toys once again.  I discovered the toys were a lot cooler than when I was a kid and I approached motherhood ecstatic with the knowledge that I would get to play again.

       I remember when she colored her first picture.  Instead of coloring the picture as you would normally see it, she used every single color in the box.  It didn’t matter what she was coloring, each picture was a rainbow of color.  She liked rainbows.  In kindergarten her teacher taught her a little ditty about rainbows to learn her colors.  She came home singing about rainbows and I quickly picked up on the song and sang along too.  I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too!!  As much as I encouraged her to color things as they appeared in the world, for a while she colored her pictures filled with as many brilliant and vibrant colors as she could get on the page.   It wasn’t long before the rainbows were replaced by all the right colors in all the right places.  By the time my son had come along I had rethought my position on how pictures should be colored.  If he wanted to color his picture with green, which has always been his favorite, so be it!  

        Time flies by and they grow up so fast.  As each year passes they become wiser to the ways of the world.  At that point it no longer seemed important to remind him that people shouldn’t be blue and their hair is not usually pink.  What did seem important was to allow him to be creative and have control over his little world for however long he could even if it was only by allowing him to color whatever color he chose.  Kids discover life isn’t all fanciful unicorns pooping rainbows soon enough.  







      Life is rough, there really is no such thing as rainbow poop, and when everything turns to $hit there is no way to gloss it over.  It is plain nasty $hit and it stinks.  We learn to not trust everyone.  We learn the hard way not to do certain things.  We grow up and stop really believing there is good in everyone, there is a Santa Claus, and there really is a bunny that delivers Easter baskets Easter morning.  The rainbows dim a bit.  They are no longer vibrant, and somehow we grow up and learn to see right through them without appreciating their beauty, promise, and worth.

      Most people will always dream of what lies just over the rainbow.  What is on the other side?  Is that where our fortunes lie? Is there a pot of gold just waiting to be found?  Or are they merely a promise of all the goodness that life has to offer? Rainbows are G0d’s promise to never destroy the world again by flood.  Ultimately rainbows are a phenomenon caused when the sun shines through droplets of water in the atmosphere causing a multicolored arc that awes observers.  They are miraculous, don’t happen often, and unfortunately never last.  
     

      They are visions of unspeakable beauty much like the innocence and exuberance of a child.  If only we could bottle that exuberance and hold it close to our hearts forever we could slow the hands of time theoretically  and feel young again.  Even in the darkest hours of our lives we know with great certainty that the sun will shine again, the rain will stop, and if we are lucky a rainbow will peek out and offer us the hope and promise of a better day tomorrow until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.