The Tail-End of the Year

It is now mid-December and I am spending my time wrapping presents while watching A Baby Story on TLC and trying to brainstorm about what the heck to get my in-laws.  Boogiebear is in the midst of a growth spurt and has started to go to bed a little later this week at night and for naps.  Since I'm not decorating, baking, or making stuff right now I'm kind of at a loss figuring out what to do with all this time on my hands!  I can remember a time when every empty moment would be quickly superseded by by worry and stress...so oppressive.

When I was younger, I used up empty moments imagining what and where I wanted to be by the time I turned thirty.  I thought I might be a writer for a magazine like National Geographic, single and traveling the world with deadlines on my mind, wearing clothes with lots of pockets.  Or maybe an artist in a city like New York or Seattle or Melbourne living in a loft with giant canvases supplanted in every corner.  A small kitchenette and comfy bed the only other belongings.  Single.  Busy.

Then I grew up just a bit and realized I wasn't going to get to those destinations any time soon, if at all.  Chances, opportunities, and dreams started to fall by the wayside like discarded rubber on a highway.  Left behind by dirty Mack trucks too busy going to see what they were leaving.  I started to make enormous efforts killing those dreams off one by one, reducing my scope, setting my sights much lower so that I could live with the reality I awoke with daily at that time.  I never found myself lying in bed imagining husbands and children and presents to wrap under a crooked tree.  I never imagined empty moments that were just...left alone to simply be.

It is such a Blessing.