Seasons of Life

I love times of reflection. If there' one thing I could encourage all my loved ones (friends and family) to do more often it would be to sit and just reflect back on their lives, experiences tears and triumphs.

For some strange reason this week has been full of different memories from my life. They were random, from all the different eras of my life.

An egg exploded in my sister's face, I've walked through dozens of Indian ruins, raced a reindeer, I've lost and found a shoe in three feet of mud, I remember being so afraid my foot would fall through the staircase in the house of my childhood, I found my Christmas present one November by accident and was mortified at the thought that I would have to act surprised on Christmas morning, I've watched a friend's pants catch on fire, I remember the early morning road trips into town for a breakfast Bible study, wearing the exact same colored outfit as my boyfriend without knowing it, pretending I was a mermaid, sun-bathing and floating away on our boat, walking down the beach in pouring rain, hiding from a bobcat and wondering why my horse ignored it, chasing chickens and pretending I was fugitive for a game.

What I realized as these memories flitted by this week was that life is worth it. It's worth all the valleys because the mountains are so glorious. The funny thing is that the best mountains are usually the simplest little things in life.

Personally I'm in a valley right now but what I realized, remembering all these little memories was that a good portion of them happened during times that I would have called valleys. The thought came to me that even though I am exhausted and stressed, little memories are being made that will find me in the future and bring a smile to my face.

So, if you'll forgive my indulgence in sharing my memories with you and humor me a little longer, take a few minutes and just sit and reminisce. Whether you're in a valley or singing on the top of one of life's mountains, take a moment and find a little memory that makes you smile. If you could do that for me it would make this whole long post all worth my time.

For those of you who "don't have that kind of time" I'll share a memory from today that may make you smile. I ate at Chipotle tonight and afterwards went straight to class. For the next four hours I walked around with a large (quite large) piece of lettuce stuck between my two front teeth. And let me assure you I smiled at a lot of people in that time. None of those lovely people let me know that I looked like leaf-eater. Finally, as I went to talk to one of my housemates at her work she pointed it out to me. Lovely.

My point in writing this post is basically just to say that I think it's the simple things in life that make it matter so much, and I hope today you can revel in them, just a bit. :)