What if?

Some days I'm tempted to fall in love with this place. It's so exotic. Last evening, for about two hours, a tremendous thunder and lightening shower rolled over us, accompanied by torrential rains. Toward the end of the storm, I'd planned to take Emmy to a friends house, a couple of miles from our own. We found, much to our amazement, that many of the road ways we'd normally use were completely flooded! I'm not talking a little standing water, there was feet of water over the roadways!! I saw (and it was featured on the news this morning) a small pickup truck, submerged up to the drivers window stuck in the small hollow of roadway under an overpass!! We had to re-chart our course to find the high ground roads (mind you, when you live in a below sea level community "high ground" is a relative term) to get us where we needed to be.

Actually I was very proud, not only did we find our way, without loss of life or limb (or hurting John's Jag!), but then I got back home again safe and sound, as well. What an adventure! All the elements of a Steven King novel; A Dark and Stormy Night, lighting flashes that lit up the whole sky, followed by thunder that actually shook the house. The rain was coming down so hard it was flying at the windows of the house, and later the car, sideways. The fastest setting of the windshield wipers couldn't keep up! What a night! I'm thinking I must not have lost all my pioneer spirit after all!

Not to long before we moved down here, I was going through a "memory box" and found, much to my surprise, a short essay I'd written, probably when I was in about the third grade. We moved a lot when I was a kid, by my reckoning, 7 or 8 different schools before the 10th grade, when mom and dad finally settled us in Bremerton to stay. Not many souvenirs of my childhood survived all that transporting from one place to another. I did save a Shirley Temple doll, given to me when I was about 8, and then because I could do it myself, I saved lots of memorabilia from high school. There's not much else, so how this single sheet of notebook paper, laboriously and carefully hand written (and not very neatly I might point out) survived I can't even guess. I didn't find it with a folder of old school work, just a folded up piece of paper at the bottom of a box. What a precious gift.

This little essay was evidently an assignment to write about; "What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?" In it, I proudly proclaimed to the world (or probably just to my teacher) "I want to be a scientist or an astronaut when I grow up!" Now, I can almost remember writing the paper, and I perfectly remember the feelings! What did you want to be when you grew up? Did any of you out there ever want to be a scientist or astronaut or a pioneer or a cowboy? I sure did! Each and every one one appealed to me at some time or another! Not to mention owner of horses, lots and lots of horses! I'm not sure what I intended to do with all my herds of horses in the future, but I know I wanted to own lots of them!

I'm not sure when the dreams faded or changed for me, but my grown up self recognizes living as we do in a world filled with modern conveniences, I wouldn't know how to do my life any other way. Does that mean it was the right choice to find new goals or did I make this reality the right choice? I often say to friends "I'd never change a single moment of my life, because each and every step got me to where I am today, and this is where I absolutely want to be!!

Don't you admire those few people we know who, whether from strength of resolve or blind luck, never gave up on their childhood dreams? People who didn't let the well intentioned "leaders" in their young lives point them in other directions "for their own good!" They became a cowboy or a fireman. For the rest of us, we (generally) do the best we know how to do with the tools at hand. And, maybe we had to let go of one thing in order to catch hold of something else. Perhaps leaving those childhood dreams behind is a normal and necessary part of growing up for most of us.

A happy thought: No matter the reasons we've changed direction, good or bad, lazy or resilient, smart move or a "forever" regret, I'm pretty sure the child's dreams still lingers in each of our souls. We certainly could revisit them anytime we'd like. We could try on those old wishes and examine what once were our goals, see if they might still fit, remember what drew us to them in the first place, revel in our once fearless hearts. Who knows what would happen? Some days, you might find my inner child in charge of the writing here. A little one, freed from the responsibilities of her adult caretaker for a few minutes, and allowed dream and share to her hearts content. I wish I could give her more time!

blessings,
my