Wisdom isn’t knowing more about life but appreciating life more. Appreciating all we’ve been given and all we’re getting. Appreciating every breath and every connection and every blessed thing we have.
These days, I feel like a wise old man.
Another birthday approaches and I view it with a big fat yawn. 40 seemed so big and epic but now it’s just a big epic eye roll. The number doesn’t mean a thing. The miles that have been traveled mean something. They mean a lot.
There are reasons I took things for granted. The foolish now of being a 20-something. The busyness that a new job and marriage and life brought. The feeling that I had things figured out finally.
So many years later, I feel daily like I’m starting at square one in terms of trying to figure out this life.
It’s a daily battle.
Yet every single day, I find joy and I find amazement.
I see people who have come in my life and helped shape me. Helped correct me. Simply helped me.
The me who sits down here typing these rambling words is a me because of all of these people. Past and present.
Walking on a sidewalk watching the fading sun, we usually only think of ourselves and our little lives. We don’t see them as epic journeys or mythical battles.
It’s so easy to fall into the here and now and not see the bigger picture.
I’d love to invite all those people who have changed and impacted me to a big party just to thank them. I’m doing my thing with writing just like they’re doing their thing. Each person living their life and fighting the battle. Everybody has to fight to find faith in this messed up world. Everybody is a hero in their own journey.
I want to invite all these heroes for an epic feast.
Yet so often, we don’t thank them. We don’t have time or energy. We lose the connection or the reason. All we focus on is that familiar sidewalk and we see the familiar sun setting in the familiar place.
Another view is beautiful. Another perception is blessed.
Tonight, I’m trying to think of all those others. I’d like to thank each of them for helping me out in whatever way they did.
The days are long but the years are short. A mother of multiples said this to me and it’s one of the most brilliant quotes I’ve ever heard.
Long days and short years.
One moment you’re sixteen and you’re wondering when the heck you’re finally going to have freedom to do your own thing. The next moment you’re forty and you’re wondering when the heck you’re finally going to have freedom to do your own thing.
Is that the circle of life? I don’t know.
All I know is the morning sunset is a blessed thing. The morning alarm sounds with twins greeting each other and playing out through a baby monitor. Work is a world full of worlds, the way I always dreamt life could be. The way I always wanted life to be. There are many little smiles by little girls to help combat their crankiness and their irritable moods. There are the eyes of three little ladies who love me in their own way. There’s the knowing glance of their mommy who understands the journey we’re both currently in.
Long ago, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have imagined it to be this way. I wouldn’t have understood the immaculate highs and the dark lows. I could have tried to imagine them but I simply wouldn’t get it.
Time allows me to slowly and surely get it.
Just like all those people who have meant something. Just like my appreciation for them. And just like another year passing where I’m thankful for all the things I’ve been given.
Happy days. It’s all how you look at them. Tonight, I’m choosing to see the sinking sun and all its glory.
Thank you for sharing that. I just turned 43 April 9th. I have to say I celebrated it differently than I did my 40th. I feel better than I did when I was 40. I'm happier. I'm more thankful for the wonderful people in my life also. See when I turned 40, My husband had been passed away for two years. It wasn't supposed to go down that way. You also still have young ones. My baby just turned 18. I am finding myself facing an empty nest. My son is 22 and living on his own. After all this I have found myself content in life. Content with being a single person. Not as a single mother but as a single person.Again thank you for sharing.
Ann Bates.
Thanks for sharing Travis. I love seeing your tweets and the pics of the girls on FB.
Thanks Travis. I am 55 and still trying to figure it out. God is good.
I sometimes sit back and I think the same things.. Very well written!!! I at 16, then 26, and now 36 still wonder when will I ever grow up!!! You have to be thankful for everything you have and all the things you went through.. Good and bad.. That have brought you to where you are on this journey. Sometimes, the journey is amazing… Other times, it seems like a failure.. But all of these things helped make us who we are… And brings us a lot more wisdom! Thanks for sharing!