I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we tend to do things that give us some sort of ‘pay off’. It doesn’t always mean that the pay off is a good one, but we do things because it feeds something within us. Even if we are prone to obsessive behavior- it may not be necessarily healthy, but there’s a ‘reason’ we do it or it would stop.
I remember when I graduated from High School my mother said to me that I should enjoy those months leading up to it and at graduation she encouraged me to embrace that moment in time because it was the last time we would all be in one place at the same time. At the time, I don’t remember giving it much thought and may have even dismised it as one of those ‘momisms’ but yet, it stuck with me for more than 25 years. It hasn’t been one of those things that has been a constant in my mind, but something that I’m reminded of from time to time.
This summer was my 25 year class reunion. I wasn’t in the area, so didn’t make it, but some of us have decided to hold an ‘unofficial’ class reunion when I’m home for the holidays. Thanks to Facebook, I’ve been able to reconnect with some of the friends I had in high school and also realized that I don’t have anything in common with some of my old classmates. 25 years is a long time and we have all changed and grown over the years. Mom was right- that moment in time will never be recreated and while it was precious then- this is now.
I’ve learned in recent years that no matter how much you may love something from you past- you can’t recreate that. It was what it was during that moment in time, and no matter how try you hard to grasp and return to that moment, or make it what it was. It just isn’t possible. It’s important not to spend too much time looking back on what was happening then, that you fail to see the beauty in what IS now.
