A New Goal

For many years I wanted to be a writer.  As a little girl, I filled countless notebooks with my barebones stories and innocent drawings.  I wanted to write; so I did.  In some ways, looking back at that little girl who was me, I realize that kids just do what they want. At least, healthy kids.  As long as it's not time for bed, or homework or school, kids just do the things they enjoy most in life.  If they want to build a tower, they get down on the floor and build one hell of a tower.  If they want to draw, they pull out the supplies and sprawl on the floor to create their masterpiece.  If they decide they want to learn how to sew or learn about the vast universe or bake a cake or jump in puddles or hunt for seeds and pods, nothing can stand in their way.  There is no writer's block or self-doubting that gets in the way.  There is no lack of confidence, or negative thoughts telling them they really suck at all that creative stuff anyway. There is absolute, pure joy and interest in living life in the now.  Kids naturally want to jump into life and embrace every slimy, crunchy, feathery, smelly, shiny, sparkly part of it.

I love that about kids.  I watch my own kids and wonder with envy...what if I just did what I wanted all the time? What if I just signed up for that photography class or travelled to Hawaii or learned to play flute or refinished my grandmother's old furniture or danced like I had wings?
All of my motherly guilt and responsibility is there to keep me in check, to tie me down into a day-in, day-out existence.  Wake up, get kids to school.  Clean the house.  Shop for food, cook the food, clean up after the food.

It used to be that I was on the path to becoming a nurse.  Now, that goal is........gone. And maybe the pain of that loss will become an intense love for the present.  Maybe I need to pour that feverish diligence into making my life truly awesome.  Perhaps I just need to shift things around, to rechannel my time and energies into what I have in front of me now.

I think even before nursing school I was a pretty good mom.   I love being a mother and all that that entails; the warm cuddles with skinny 5 year old arms around my neck, the dimples in my 9 year old's cheeks when she's told a great joke, the very wise observations of my 8 year old future scientist.  Perhaps, one can always be an even better mom.  Perhaps we can always grow and deepen our relationships with the people we love best.  Perhaps we can always strive to show our love and share our love and help our children become recipients and givers of love as well.

If I accomplish one goal in my life, let it be to spread love and acceptance in this world.  Let it be to show my family what bright sunshine they are to me.  Let it be.