Hello World

I’m reflecting on the words of a Lady Antebellum  song right now called Hello World. (I just love them by the way .. they are so very kind).

A part of it goes a little something like this ...

Hello World. How’ve you been.  Good to see you my old friend.

Sometimes I feel as cold as steel

And broken like I’m never gonna heal

I see a light, a little grace, little faith unfurled.

Hello World. 

Uhhh, how I love that song!!  If you haven't already, listen to it from beginning to end, more than once. Personally for me it says a lot.  It reminds me how life flashes before our eyes. Before we know it this short life will be gone and most of us will sit in amazement asking ourselves what we have done with all this time?!

We live in this fast paced life in which everything, except what really should, matters.   I turned 30 a week ago yesterday and I spent my day at the spa.  It was such a nice gift to give myself.  I've beat up on my body for the past 30 years so I thought I should thank it for holding on, hehe :-)  While laying there getting a fabulous massage I found myself in deep, yet comforting thought. I suddenly started seeing flashes of all these faces.  From people that I only knew from pictures as an infant, to friends I've not talked too much since childhood. Then I saw faces from young adulthood and then on to faces of today.  Some of them made me smile while some made me cringe a little.  Regardless of why they came to mind, they were all people that made up my the past 30 years of my life.

Years, months, weeks, days, moments have gone by so very fast.  I really can’t tell you where the time has gone, because as fulfilled as my life has been, I think I’ve wasted a bunch of it and that makes me so very mad at myself. Reflecting on the past 30 years, I can easily tell you that the most consistent thing I have to show is that I did alot of worrying about things I couldn't change and wishing for time to pass even quicker!

Remember how growing up we wanted the school year to hurry and end so it could be time for summer break?  Then in my “tweens” I remember wanting to hurry and be 13 so I could officially be a teenager.  Then all l I could think about was being 16 so I could drive, 18 so I could be “an adult”, 21 so I could legaly drink if I wanted to, 24 so I could rent a car and so on and so on! Later in my 20’s I wished Mondays would hurry and be Fridays so that my weekend would get here faster. There is no denying that most of the past 30 years have been spent wishing my days away.  Why did I do that to myself?!  Why do we wish our days away when they are already so limited when you think about it.  The time we get here on earth with the people we love is over in the blink of an eye.  Why do we waste so much time wanting it to hurry and pass us by?

I don't know why, but I do know that I don’t want to do that anymore.  I want to LIVE each and every day.  I want to know that when God decides I’m no longer needed on this earth that I HAVE LIVED MY LIFE TO IT'S FULLEST!!!!!  So far in this life, I’ve had my fun, met wonderful people and experienced great things, but still yet I feel like I haven’t really lived!!

For a lot of people (and even myself at times) we make excuses for whey we aren’t living.  It’s always someone elses fault we aren’t happy. True, many times situations are out of our control, but most of the time it’s up to US to decide the outcome! My goal for the next 30 years of my life is to make every single day make life worth living.  I’m not sure how to do that just yet, but it’s my goal. 

Speaking of, someone asked me what my goals were. Of course they were talking about my career and my  "family" status.  I told them I didn’t really have a goal for that anymore.  I felt like for the longest time my career goal was to be the main anchor where I could tell stories, both good and bad, to the people of my hometown. Well, I can check that off my list and I feel very good about that. In my personal life I had a goal to get married and have a baby by the time I was 30.  SCORE .. well sort of! Watch what you wish for, because I got married alright, but to the wrong man. While we were together for quite some time, I was miserable in my marriage for only a short time. I did what I said I would never do and filed for divorce and thankfully was without child in the process.

So, see what can happen when you have YOUR OWN goals?! God didn't agree with my "goals" and boy am I glad!! Had my goals and my life plan panned out, I would still be married to the wrong man, unhappy, possibly with child to make matters worse and in a job that I dreaded going to each day.  So I no longer worry about goals anymore.

It was when I stopped being on some time line I finally became happy. I’m now the dreaded 30 and have finally met a real man and am at this point indifferent about having children.  I took what some would consider a "downgrade" in my career, but have found in so many aspects that it's actually quite the upgrade. So from now on when someone asks me what my goals are, without hesitation I know the answer.

My goal is to just live.  Take time to look around and stop to smell the roses as they say .. which goes back to the song reference. I don’t care what that means as long as I go to bed each night feeling somehow fulfilled.   If 30 years from now I want to be able to look back and say ..I know I screwed up here and there but at least in some way, even if it's small,  I savored each day I was given! If I can even come close to saying that then I’ll be one really happy 60 year old lady!

Grace and Peace to you,
Stacy