Priorities
As Christmas is just a few weeks away, those of us who live/work away from home will hopefully be traveling back for the holidays. For those of you who are unable to, I wish you the best and I know that you have friends and family that are thinking of you as much as you are thinking about them.
Due to the holiday season, I've decided to take a little break from posting on the blog until the new year. In order to conclude, I'd like to summarize what we've talked about thus far. Since the beginning, I've talked a lot about how important family is to me, and I think it only fair then I end the year talking about the same.
When I was about 4 years old, my family moved down to the southern part of the United States. The rest of my father's family lived up North about a 16-hour drive. Every year, we made that trip back to our old home to spend 2 to 3 days with the remainder of his family every summer. Almost every Christmas, we would do the same. when I was about 10, we began spending every Christmas up North. It was a long drive, especially for a young boy with ADHD and motion sickness. It was also expensive, costing hundreds of dollars in gas. Plus, almost half of our school Christmas break was spent driving back and forth. to me, it almost seemed ridiculous. I was young then, but as I began to get older, I began to understand the principle: family comes first. I began to understand that we spent every Christmas at grandpa’s, because soon grandpa would no longer be coming to Christmas.
As I sit in a quiet place writing this week, I reflect on how many times I’ve spent holidays at aunts’ and uncles’ houses opening presents, playing with cousins, and watching the adults chat about politics over a few beers. It's strange how quickly those years pass, and how easily those good times are forgotten. It's been almost 3 years since I've been home for Christmas myself, and even I can hardly remember what life used to be like before. A lot has changed in 3 years, involving both tragedy and blessing. I've gotten older and a little bit lager around the waist, but we won't mention that right away 😉. I've had some of the best days of my life, then some of the absolute worst. It's been a long process really, but it's finally time to come home.
There's that awfully cliché saying, “you don't really know what you've got until it's gone” but man, Is it true. You don't really know how much close friends mean to you until your friends are no longer close. You don't realize how much you love having family to come home to, until you no longer come home. You don't realize how much you needed somebody, until they no longer need you. Life's been hard, yes, but I didn't expect anything less.
I've got a strong belief that, in order to understand how valuable good things are, we must lose them at one point or another. Sometimes those things come back, and we're extremely grateful that they do. We relish in that newfound appreciation for what up we already have, and we wish to never lose it again. In other cases, however, we never see those things again. It's at that point, where we begin to learn how to live without them, and we do our best to fill the void that they left. I'm not someone who's lost a whole lot of ‘things’, but at certain times throughout my life, I've lost that which was most important to me; and I knew that I wouldn’t be getting them back. I've also had these strange moments where, in certain situations, I begin to truly cherish living in the moment, and I begin to wish that they’ll never end.
And so, in this holiday season, as the year comes to a close, learn to live in the moment, and cherish what matters most.
Love,
MP
When I was about 4 years old, my family moved down to the southern part of the United States. The rest of my father's family lived up North about a 16-hour drive. Every year, we made that trip back to our old home to spend 2 to 3 days with the remainder of his family every summer. Almost every Christmas, we would do the same. when I was about 10, we began spending every Christmas up North. It was a long drive, especially for a young boy with ADHD and motion sickness. It was also expensive, costing hundreds of dollars in gas. Plus, almost half of our school Christmas break was spent driving back and forth. to me, it almost seemed ridiculous. I was young then, but as I began to get older, I began to understand the principle: family comes first. I began to understand that we spent every Christmas at grandpa’s, because soon grandpa would no longer be coming to Christmas.
As I sit in a quiet place writing this week, I reflect on how many times I’ve spent holidays at aunts’ and uncles’ houses opening presents, playing with cousins, and watching the adults chat about politics over a few beers. It's strange how quickly those years pass, and how easily those good times are forgotten. It's been almost 3 years since I've been home for Christmas myself, and even I can hardly remember what life used to be like before. A lot has changed in 3 years, involving both tragedy and blessing. I've gotten older and a little bit lager around the waist, but we won't mention that right away 😉. I've had some of the best days of my life, then some of the absolute worst. It's been a long process really, but it's finally time to come home.
There's that awfully cliché saying, “you don't really know what you've got until it's gone” but man, Is it true. You don't really know how much close friends mean to you until your friends are no longer close. You don't realize how much you love having family to come home to, until you no longer come home. You don't realize how much you needed somebody, until they no longer need you. Life's been hard, yes, but I didn't expect anything less.
I've got a strong belief that, in order to understand how valuable good things are, we must lose them at one point or another. Sometimes those things come back, and we're extremely grateful that they do. We relish in that newfound appreciation for what up we already have, and we wish to never lose it again. In other cases, however, we never see those things again. It's at that point, where we begin to learn how to live without them, and we do our best to fill the void that they left. I'm not someone who's lost a whole lot of ‘things’, but at certain times throughout my life, I've lost that which was most important to me; and I knew that I wouldn’t be getting them back. I've also had these strange moments where, in certain situations, I begin to truly cherish living in the moment, and I begin to wish that they’ll never end.
And so, in this holiday season, as the year comes to a close, learn to live in the moment, and cherish what matters most.
Love,
MP
Comments
Post a Comment