Be who you were created to be, and you will set the world on fire. [St. Catherine of Siena]
I've been thinking a lot lately.
I guess adding another little life to our planet, and being responsible for nurturing that life and shepherding it through babyhood into childhood and beyond, makes me ponder big questions (that is, while I have time to think, before I descend into the newborn fog).
Who was I created to be? What about Kyle?
Are we really doing it right -- living our lives with purpose, fulfilling our potential, finding our limits and trying to stretch them? All that sort of good stuff. Would our childhood selves be proud of what we've done, and what we're doing now? Can we tell our own children that they can do and be anything, that they are perfect just as they are, that they were made for greatness in ways big or small? Can we encourage them to live courageously, to take chances, to stay true to their values?
I firmly believe those words, but a part of me wonders if some of that magic gets lost for most of us along the way. I'm not feeling a whole lot of it right now.
There are very few things I've always wanted to "be" -- a wife, a mother and a writer. From my very earliest memories, I wanted to love and to be in love, to take care of little ones (though my baby dolls suffered a few bumps and bruises along the way), and to tell stories. Those are the things I was created for, and that's how I want to move forward.
So my family, and my baby, and my words... those are the defining aspects of my life. That's what I'm going to focus on going forward. Everything else comes in a very distant second, third, fourth, eighteenth place.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference. [Robert Frost]
