Every once in a while, things that happen today remind you of the past. This could be any kind of memory, pleasing, unpleasant or just neutral.
Yesterday I had one of these experiences, took me back twenty-five years. My wife was going through boxes of children’s books we have saved for our grandchildren sorting and preparing to deluge our offspring with boxes of books for their child.
In one of the boxes was a story written as a school assignment, by our oldest daughter in 1990. On re-reading the story it really highlighted for me how perspective of the moment really matters. Back then I was a busy young professional with a growing family and multiple school age children.
Today I was amazed by how insightful and mature my daughter was at that young age. It was a simple story about events in my daughters life written as a fairy tale. With that part of my life in the past, that is I am no longer living it, the story took on a whole different perspective and the ending, well, I just had to laugh out loud.
And the point!
Past moments in your life can be viewed very differently with your today’s lens. It’s fascinating to me how your current state, environment, events effect how you view the things that transpire around you.
In this case, having passed through the child rearing years reading this piece of the past had a much greater emotional impact than it did twenty-five years ago when I was living it, but I recognize I was not really in the moment at the time fully experiencing it.
The point is, whenever you can try to pause and take time to smell the coffee, you don’t really want to regret it later.
I can certainly identify with you. I have been sorting through our son’s assignments and photos and thought the same thing. They make us laugh and cry at the same time. Did our son really write this? Did we appreciate the effort at the time? Did I really cut his hair that way? I too am in the process of sorting through books that I will send to our granddaughter in the hope that she will treasure and enjoy them as our son did. Time flies in our busy lives. When young we can hardly wait for tomorrow. As we age we’d like it to slow down so we can stretch out each moment. Thanks for the musings on life.