Flashback...old school.

I told you I was looking through 'old photos' this past weekend. I actually scrapped a couple of my senior pictures as I played with the latest goodies pictured here from the SIS Sonora High Class of '79 Collection. It's a whole bunch of really fun stuff, and I made a mini book so far. You can see all the pages here, if you like. Of course I had to make an owl too. =)
I was having flashbacks- good and bad memories all rolled together. That's what high school and growing up was for me. I really had some times that I wish I could change...yet I see how they have helped me become who I am now.
Good and bad.
The past really means so much more to me now.
It makes me stop and think. And reflect and choose direction for my present and my future.
I love that I have 'control' over the choices I make each day.
I love that each day is a new day. My friends- the SIS Fashionistas- and I were talking about this in some messages recently.
I spent time talking with my mom and dad when I was with them in Minnesota just a week or so ago too.
I think it is one of my passions in life. To live intentionally. To live with purpose. To live simply and yet to live a life of meaning.
I think it's what most of us would say we want in the end- to have lived a life that meant something. To someone or to something. To dedicate our lives, not to getting more stuff; to accumulating wealth and stauts....but to live a life that enhances the life of people and places we touch along the way. Whether it is a good cause that affects a lot of people, or whether we quietly encourage or mentor those in our small circles of life.
I fell asleep last night content. Content and with the understanding that good and bad happens. Good and bad touches all of us. Good and bad has shaped and will continue to influence my life. But I can choose to live in this moment- with Purpose. What an amazing, yet simple concept.
It's strange and almost out-of-body in a sense the way I 'see life' sometimes. There are days I live and enjoy the moment- almost as if the present is a 'flashback'. Losing Teagan has affected my perspective so deeply and it has shaped my present so profoundly. I miss the past at times, but because of that the present is such a gift to me. Her death, in some odd sense, has allowed me to 'glimpse my future'. I know that my kids are young for a short time and that one day, what I have right now- this moment- willl be just a memory. Thus, I live today almost as if it is my past....I am sensatized to my present in new ways. I live for each moment. Good and bad.
I have glimpsed my future and it has heightened the awareness of the present, and allows me to appreciate my past.
Good and bad.