Back In Time

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."--Mark Twain

My entire childhood, my biggest dream was to put "right" all the things I felt were wrong in my little life. I wanted to grow up, marry a man who would find me worthy of loving, and have babies, giving them a home where they felt safe and loved every day. I wanted them to never know a day of fear that I looked at them and saw them lacking in some way or that I didn't want them. It was a hunger deep inside me to re-set a course that had veered way off track. I found an old journal written by twenty-two year old me right before and just after I found out I was pregnant with my first child. In it, I wrote the following entries:

Feb. 21, 1992

Today is my husband's birthday. I bought him a card and later we're going over to our friends' house for steak and homemade birthday cake. He is going to be twenty-four. The thing I want to give him the most is a baby. Maybe then he will see me and want to be with me. I hope these fertility pills work.

March 1, 1992

Well, we're going to have a baby! It's growing inside of me right now. I still find it hard to believe...I have prayed for this day for four years. Now I don't have to wait another day because I'm finally and completely pregnant.

Aug. 5, 1992 (the day after my twenty-third birthday)

It's been too long since I wrote in this book. There are many blank pages waiting for my love and attention. I guess the most important thing I want to write about for now is the birth of this baby I'm carrying. I feel him/her moving inside of me every day and I watch him/her grow healthy and strong. I have loved this baby since before he/she was ever conceived, when his/her little soul was still in Heaven with God. I feel very special that God has trusted me and Brad with this wonderful gift. It's really strange how life changes in an instant when you know you're going to be a parent. I feel bonded to life, a part of creation. I feel like maybe I'm special.

It has taken me the better part of two decades to realize that it doesn't matter at all if I'm special. All that really matters is that I leave behind something special when my time on Earth is done. I've done that already and know that's true every time I see those wondrous, kind, sweet, intelligent girls who walk around shining their light on this world and carrying half of my DNA. I know I've done that every time I've helped a child fall in love with reading or taught them how to do something they didn't think they could do. To my girls and my students, I say, "You are the closest to magic I will ever come." and to my twenty-two year old self, I say, "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."--Pablo Picasso...As for my forty-four year old self...I am now a ship sailing towards the horizon with the wind in my sails and the stars above to guide me.

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