MOVING BEYOND THE MEMORIES!

I wanted to say something about moving beyond our memories.  Sounds like a strange thing to say.  Who wants to forget about our life; people, places, things?  Forgetting the bad, although sometimes we wish we would, is really what shapes us, I think, more than the good.  The struggle, the feeling of rising above the challenge, is what gives us strength and character.  We move beyond the the moment and push it back in our memory box, because that is what we do, as human beings.  We are innately compelled to get back up and put things back together.  There are a million books to help us do this.

But those aren't the memories I am talking about.  I am talking about moving beyond the good memories.  Those are the ones that hold us back.  The fear of not recovering or of never feeling that great again is what keeps us stuck where we are.

I never thought about it much.  The memories we have sustain us, give us hope for more good things to come.

And then my childhood piano rolled out the door.  Forty-seven  years of music were on those keys.  It hit me.  Selling my house, moving on to who knows what.  I wasn't afraid of the future, in terms of money, love or a place to live.  It was that I may never have the chance to have those memories.  You see I have moved my family quite a bit.  Usually because of money issues, husband issues (which caused the money issues), my desire for my children to have a better education, basically striving to give my children a better future.

My home, the one I just sold, was the place I'd lived in the longest.  None of my children lived there, unless you count my 25 years old son who was in the basement for 3 years LOL.  No, my memories come from the grandchildren.  This was "Grandma Mary's House!"  This was the place family, usually 25 plus, came for holidays, birthdays and reunions.  Where, when everyone came home, there were bodies in beds, bodies on the sofa, bodies on the floor in sleeping bags, bodies on blow-up mattresses and cribs and changing tables in the hallway.  It would get noisy and crazy and I LOVED IT!!  Nothing made me happier...AND NOW IT WAS GONE!!!

I have to believe that the Lord has sent me on this journey for a reason and that the blessings of a big family aren't lost to a house, but will reinvent themselves in new traditions that my children will navigate amongst themselves.

So it is on to new and different things.  Hard to imagine they could ever be better, because they have already been so wonderful.  I have lived a very blessed life.

So next stop, Iowa, and grandbaby number 10!!