My wife and I had a chance to go back to my hometown this weekend for my younger sister’s twenty first birthday. I try to go back and visit as much as possible, as my father, sister, and grandparents still live there. Still it doesn’t feel as if I visit enough.
I especially feel that way about my sister. It seems we were closer when we were young. I spent summers babysitting her, or so I thought. Looking back and realizing that my grandparents lived only fifty feet away, I see that I wasn’t the caretaker I thought I was. I enjoyed the big brother role. I made sure she finished her chores. Dog days of summer found us in the pool every day. I was always the designated lifeguard, or at least in my mind I was. My grandmother would always come out and sit under the oversized umbrella on the swimming pool’s deck my dad had made and sip her iced lemonade, but I knew that when someone needed help I would come to the rescue. I would be the embodiment of David Hasselhoff, saving the day before my grandmother could even enter the water and do her signature doggy paddle, barely treading water and keeping afloat.
Over a decade later I’ve never had to “rescue” her. She and I are different in a lot of ways, but we both share a strong independence. I’m proud of my little sister. I feel she has grown up to be a beautiful person. I regret not seeing her as much as I would have liked since I’ve moved and started my own life.
While celebrating this weekend, I couldn’t help but think of the person I was four years ago when I was twenty-one. I feel like the person I was then, in a lot of ways, isn’t the person I am now. That isn’t a bad thing; we all evolve and change as people. I feel like the person I was at twenty-one would enjoy a conversation about life over coffee with the person I am today.
I read an article not too long ago that spoke to me. The author took a point of view about perceiving God’s will that I share. He made the argument that we spend so much time worrying about if God wants us to be a nurse, or a mechanic, or if he wants us to be married at twenty one or twenty eight, or if he wants us to have three children or four that we forget how short life is. I don’t believe that God cares as much what we aspire to be in ten years as he cares about what we’re doing right now. God cares just as much about the little decisions we make every day as the life goals we set for ourselves because the little decisions determine how our lives will play out. This week I’m going to try to stop worrying about the big stuff and start enjoying the small stuff more. I know if need be, God will go all “David Hasselhoff” and rescue us. Life is beautiful, but sometimes we spend too much time planning it instead of living it.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”- Annie Dillard
The play list this was written to consisted of “Twenty Two Fourteen” by the Album leaf, “Find Love” by Clem Snide, “All of My Days” by Alexi Murdoch, and “Sleep.
When We Die” by Anchor and Braille.
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