Today, it's taking me a bit to write, because the songs are pulling them from my core. Today, I'm thankful for memories.
I have lived a rich, and diverse life and it is not over. Tomorrow would have been my aunt's birthday, again, and it's days like those that bring it all back. All the times I spent with her... all the times I spent with my father... hunting, the river, finding fossils, crisp autumn grass, cold air in my hair, smiling, decorating for Christmas, eating Turkey on Thanksgiving... These people that were in my life... the love that they created and the family that we were.
My wedding... even as small as it was... my mother-in-law... my new family... life in Europe... kissing my husband on the same street corner for New Years in Holland... under the streetlamp - in the rain.
The smell of hay in a cold barn in winter. Watching meteor showers with dad in the back of the truck. Shooting BB guns. Sitting on his lap and steering the truck while he worked the pedals that I was too short to reach. Counting deer on evening drives. Junior mints and Schlitz.
The smell of peanut butter and paste in the elementary hallway. School field trips. Graduation. Boot camp. Tech School. Starting life in Shreveport. Single motherhood. Leaving the military. Succeeding.
Laundry by hand in Italy. Soccer celebrations in Turkey. Praying on the mountain in Israel. Naked people in Vegas. Heartbreak in Diego Garcia.
Today, I'm thankful that I have these memories, and so many more. A lifetime of treasures, tucked away deep in the soul.... an album that I can access whenever I want, and flip through the pages and lose myself in the depth of each one.
No comments:
Post a Comment