Choices

The decision of how and where to allocate one's time is an important one for me. Not only do I feel that precious ticking clock of life, but I truly enjoy every moment I'm in, engaged in whatever it is I'm doing. Yes, even in the worst of times, the times when I bitch. It's not the same as not enjoying it; it's experiencing it, life, for all it is - good AND imperfect.

It's been hard to restrain myself/ourselves from booking another cruise, especially to celebrate our two-year anniversary coming up. It was becoming what we *do*, to celebrate and commemorate the occasion, having gone for the one-year mark, and then the one and half one. But we've been trying hard to save money, like, a lot of money, and that was one choice we had to make, to forgo it for this time around, in the interest of bigger and other things a little further up the road.

It's been hard to restrain from paying half of Sjoerd's airplane ticket to bring him out here. Relational implications notwithstanding, even if those were to be fully ironed out or anyway suspended for the sake of playing it by ear which sometimes you have to do, at the end of those decisions there's still that pricetag anyway.

But I guess one restraint you can't really argue against is that of time in an hour glass. While I can never be guaranteed that I will/Ray and I will have another chance to go on a cruise, or that I will be able to see and spend time with Sjoerd again...chances are much in my favor that I will do both, and almost inevitably. And they are both timeless things, things which can be done at any point in my life and be just as sweet and every bit as timely as now - maybe even moreso (all kinks considered).

There is one argument for my time though, that I'm realizing with the passing days does demand more immediate and definitive action. Mom's been gone to Idaho for 7 1/2 months and has wanted me the whole time to come and see her new life up there. Garrett and Sam, the little cousins, who bless their hearts are apparently enamored with their big cousin (me), aren't so little and aren't going to be getting any littler, and while I anxiously and eagerly await the day they're older so I can better relate to them...these days when they are this age, I KNOW how impressionable they are and how much every little thing means to them. Hell that's exactly what my past three entries were about, ironically. I found Mark the cook from the camp I attended when I was their age (right smack between their two ages, at 12) and my heart skipped a beat, even now at 25. Steve, a counselor from that same camp, with whom I've recently reconnected thru Facebook sent me a little message yesterday and it still means as much to me that he thought of me as it did when I was that age, and received a postcard from him one of those long, hot, boring summer days when I was 12 and the world I had at my fingertips consisted only of that hopeful march to the mailbox everyday, hoping one of my camp counselors had written me. Because they were so big, and amazing, and...wow, 25!!! And they cared about ME?

You'd think that sort of thing, that novelty would wear off with age, right? It does, sort of. I'm not that amazed when someone 35, ten years my senior now, pays attention to me now. Yet the novelty of the people who did when I was that age, when I was 12 and they were (wow!) 22, or 30, or even 19...would you believe, I still sort of feel that residual awe of them. And I'm not one to get star-struck. But, it mattered, they made a crucial difference in my life, at a time when it was most emotionally and developmentally important to me to know that big people paid attention, they wanted to spend time with me, they cared. I think maybe what made their impact so resounding to me was that quietly, subtly, just by being around and taking just that extra modicum of interest, that extra step of sending a postcard or a letter, they were instilling in me an equally quiet and subtle yet a profound sense of self-worth.

In fact, now that I think about it, it didn't even stop at 12. Also through that modern miracle called Facebook, I recently got in touch with my old hockey coach. I've played on a lot of teams in the past 10+ years of my hockey career, but he was the one and only coach who was a true coach, a true leader, a true mentor. I was 16-17 when I played for him, going into college the following year, practically an adult, right? Yet I realize now he still had that same similar sort of impact? And besides despite all opposition, the loud internal one inside myself that was constantly feeling the awareness that as a girl on an boys' checking team I just couldn't compete as well as the latent outer one of those said boys feeling the same way about me, what do I remember about my coach but that he made me an assistant captain for that team. It crosses my mind now as I write about it that I suppose maybe it could have been politically motivated. Good PR, right, to have the girl as a christened leader of the team. Except I don't really doubt his intentions. Because I remember the reason he gave me that position...he said I had heart. And because he said so, I chose to live up to it, as best I could.

Time spent makes a difference, especially when it's at crucial junctures in peoples' lives. I've got big plans boiling to be leaving the state, the country, the continent for perhaps a matter of years, and as mom settles into her retirement in her little senior living community, I have to start facing the reality that time is ticking down. And if I'm not going to be around for all of it later, I oughta at least give not only them, but myself, the time to enjoy some time spent together now. Similarly, my grandparents are right there with her, grandparents that I grew up with as a permanent fixture at the holiday and birthday tables, up until they up and left just preceding mom. Grandpa's 83 and while because of his good health and mental acuity I find it hard to conceive of the age for what it means for normal geriatrics, well, my paternal grandparents made a good case for how quickly things change when they do change, as after 90-some years of being there, the one year I leave to Italy for 8 months, I forfeit the chance to see them ever again. And the boys...well...I know I've got something special with them, and not all of life's lessons of "Do this while you can" are borne of the fear of loss to death. Perhaps some of the most important ones are the ones that say it because things don't stay this way forever, and this is your biggest and best chance to make that lasting difference, that impact that will stay with them until they are teens, twenties, and beyond.

I don't know if they did the same for me as intentionally and purposefully, but I can imagine on some level at least they must have. So, Mark (Coach), Steve, Kevin, since I know you have access and may actually read this, a direct thank you to you. Know that if you wanted to make a difference by coaching high school hockey, working at a summer camp, and returning the letter of a little 8th grader who wrote to a nameless, faceless stranger in a letter addressed to "Any Service Person" and was one of the only ones who did to our class of 90 little kids who all did the same thing I did...if you wanted to make a difference, you did. And you still do, so don't stop, ever. I'm bigger now, and I've done a lot of big things with my life, and will continue to do so. But I still appreciate you just as much, and need you just as much, in that way that all people need each other regardless of how in touch any of us are with that fact or not - to become better, more aware, more complete and confident people.

To my other friends, who are out there working as teachers, as volunteers, as anyone who is truly hoping to CONNECT on the individual level and effect change for the better, keep on. The ripple effect is true...those people I just mentioned (and many others I didn't but are in between the lines anyway) and I are testaments to that. And as proof, I'm going to spend my time and money not on a cruise this time, but to go see my little cousins, and my mom, and my grandparents, and pay homage to that older generation while nurturing the next one, just as was done for me.

You make a difference.