Likes Sands Through the Hourglass...

I'm just going to warn you now that this post is a little odd and emotional.  What can I say-- I've been a little "off" in my blogging as of late.  Probably because I feel just a little "off."  Even so, this is what's on my mind.

I long nostalgically for my childhood with the same feeling I get when one of my favorite somethings is running out.  When I know that, say, my favorite perfume is running low and I can't replace it, I get this melancholy feeling of inevitability that makes me savor every last spray.

I get this same feeling when I look at old family photos or watch my parents' old movies.  I used to worry about the fact that I had this weird sadness while watching their bizarre and hilarious movies.  They were fantastic, but the pit of my stomach would wrench a little, feeling like it's all... running out, like the last sprays of my favorite perfume.  I'd think, If they were that young once, how did they get older so fast, and how fast will the rest go?

Looking back on my childhood, I remember the "feel" of it all-- the comfort of home, the security of family, the hilarity of memories, and the joy of youth.  When I'd get that odd wrenching in my stomach, I used to think that it was regret I felt, regret about the way I treated my parents and brother and regret for what I had and hadn't done.  Maybe that's part of it, but I think more than anything I look back at all the time I had ahead of me, the time I spent with my family, and the opportunities I experienced, and what I feel is a wish for more.  I wish for more time with my family, more daily interaction with my parents and brother, more growing time and learning time in that house.  But I grew up.  I left that house.  It's going too fast, and it's all... running out.  Even now I type with tears-- hard to explain, but very, very real.

This is a feeling I wrestle with, but I couldn't quite pinpoint it until this afternoon, driving home from work.  Side note: what is it about that short drive home that causes me to think so deeply?  The sudden absence of adolescents?  The sudden freedom?  Regardless, I realized today the reason for my nostalgic melancholy... and I found the silver lining, too.

While it's true that time flies and it is all running out, that which is running out (time with loved ones, memories to make, lessons to learn) will exist in endless supply someday in heaven.  The good, enduring things I love about this life and the people in it will continue in heaven, only with a surefire God-focus.  Earthly time is running out, but my eternal life is waiting.  I've got something to look forward to. 

Lessons Learned While Pulling Weeds...

A shriek of terror rang through the century-old rafters from the second-story pink bedroom. Pounding up the stairs, neck extended and tense, Dad appeared at my bedroom door. His eyes were wide.

"WHAT?!" he strained, sure I had amputated my arm or some such macabre scene.
"...It's a... spider," I replied in a small voice, shrinking away from said arachnid, slightly embarrassed at my obvious overreaction. What followed was this: the shoulders and neck relaxed, the eyes rolled, and the mouth pursed in an "I can't believe this is what the scream was about" shape. Grabbing a random shoe, the offending creature was succinctly squished and tossed, and all was well with the world.
So how did this girl, the girl who didn't cry wolf but screamed bloody murder, turn from her high-maintenance ways?

That's a good question. This is a question I pondered today as I was pulling the Creeping Charlie away from the Phlox, encountering the occasional earwig, spider, and earthworm.

I was a phobic child, afraid of most things and lacking any sense of adventure. I screamed, loudly and often. If I saw a spider, I screamed. If I stubbed my toe, I screamed. In fact, my screams became so commonplace that when my cousin ran his remote control car over my head, entangling my hair in the wheels, they assumed my screams meant that maybe I'd found an anthill. When summer came, the best punishment for me was slave garden labor. What a nightmare-- dirt, sweat, smells, and the bugs-- oh the bugs! This prima donna attitude was mine for years-- perhaps I didn't scream as often, but the phobias remained.

I don't think my maintenance factor lessened until college, when necessity forced me to be lower maintenance. One of my roommates was even worse when it came to spiders. In fact, they paralyzed her. In an ironic twist of fate, I would hear the scream, and now I would come with the random shoe to kill the offending creature. From spider-fearer to spider-killer. Would you believe, I was even the designated bug-killer on a European backpacking trip-- imagine Greek bugs! So necessity brought some change, but I also began to realize that many of the best parts of life required some blood, sweat, or... dirt, and sometimes a cocktail of all three. I suddenly realized that having a mud fight was a lot more fun that I would have imagined, and refinishing a piece of antique furniture in summer's heat was more satisfying than I could have believed. Demolishing the inside of a factory to make a new space for an inner city mission was actually fun, and hiking rugged hillsides in Italy was something I would have otherwise not experienced. What was this new feeling? It was-- gasp-- a thirst for adventure! This one-time prima donna was now traipsing across the world, enjoying midnight snow walks and mud fights, killing bugs, driving on expressways, getting her hands dirty... and loving it.

And so as I was still removing Creeping Charlie from Mom's precious perennials, I began to realize that the key to becoming low-maintenance is realizing that there are too many experiences in life that I would miss out on if I wasn't willing to get my hands dirty, sweat a little, touch a bug, or risk a bit. The screaming banshee girl was gone, and I was glad, because I had lived. Fears conquered = life lived.