A few years back, the kid and I embarked on a 30 day photo journey challenge to take just one picture a day. We were a bit lost, trying to find our way back to a time when life made sense to us.
Although the results of that challenge were incredible from a personal standpoint and we found a tremendous amount of healing, we never quite found our way back to where we had once been.
Sometimes it felt as if that place was simply gone.
Over the last couple of years, I often wondered if we would ever find our way all the way back, or if we were searching for something that no longer existed, or perhaps it had all been an illusion and never existed at all.
Eventually, I finally accepted that sometimes it just is what it is, ya know?
Several months back I began to feel a deep aching within me, a need for something I couldn’t recognize, an anxiousness for something, anything, to fill that empty spot where something was simply missing, something I desperately needed.
Before I write I find my mind filled with words and thoughts that simply come together when it is time. But now, I found that the words and thoughts were cluttered and disjointed, not really fitting together at all. I began to wonder if I would ever write again.
Watching the storm moving in,
Tears close to slipping from my eyes
Looking back through my life
Contemplating mistakes of the past
Things I should have done differently
Even knowing I did the best I knew how
It weighs heavily on my heartLifting my face to the future
Wondering if I have learned life’s lessons
Or if I am destined to repeat them againQuieting whispers of my restless soul
Urging me to wander and explore
Knowing it is not yet time
But one day soon…
I began dreaming my dreams and sharing them with others to make them real, but it only increased the craving within me . . .
And then I watched my newest granddaughter Bentlei Michele Keith come into the world.
She had a bit of a rough start and she seemed to find the whole birthing thing just a bit too undignified for her and wasn’t afraid to tell ya about it. I spent the first several minutes of her life just watching her, touching her, as she stared into my eyes with total wonder, or perhaps she was just begging God that the crazy old lady in her face wasn’t her mama. (grin)
I don’t think there is a more life changing event than watching the miracle of life, welcoming a new child into your world.
With tears in my eyes, I realized that true healing is not found in going back, but in moving forward to a new journey. Now I don’t know about you, but I am not all that patient. Since my dream of the “future” is still three years away, I have to find a way to stop going through the motions of life and start living again, not someday, but right now, in this very moment.
Yup! Beginning right now, it is time for a new journey, time to explore the wonder of the world that I am blessed with today. And maybe, just maybe, to explore who I am inside.
A New Journey Day One
6 Comments
Sometimes we realize too late that all lives have the same destination. That being the case, the journey is what matters. Make it worth the trip, every day in every way you can.
That is so very true! 🙂
Don’t spend your time lookin’ back – your vision gets clouded.
Don’t worry too much about lookin’ forward – you can’t see that far.
Better to look around, and see what you have now.
What you had, or didn’t have, is in the past, and doesn’t matter.
What you might have or lose in the future, doesn’t matter a whit right now.
It’s what you have today, and what you do with it, that counts!
Congratulations on your new grand baby!! She is beautiful.
Stunningly beautiful lil’ Texas baby! 🙂
This is a favorite example that I heard recently…
Picture in your mind three guys named “Fact”, “Faith” and “Feeling” They are lined up in that order, Fact is the front of the line, as they walk in a straight line. “As long as Faith keeps looking ahead at Fact, you walk straight, but when Faith keeps looking back at Feeling, you will stumble.”