Reflections

Yes,I know. It's been awhile. Again. So I'm not all that adept at this daily blog thing. Sue me. I'm here now and that's all that counts,right?
Here. I am here. But where is THAT exactly?
Here is December 1,2010. Here is the last thirty days of the year. Perhaps more profoundly......here is the last thirty days of the first decade of this century. I know. You never really thought about it like that,did you? Me either.
But it is. And I am thinking about it now. And thanks to reading this-so are you.
So let me ask you.....if this is the end of the decade......what do you see if you close your eyes and reflect on that decade? What have you accomplished? Where did you fall short of your expectations? Did you achieve the goals you had set for yourself? Are you where you thought you would be?
Ten years ago when you imagined your life "ten years from now" you plotted a course in your mind. A roadmap showing the ever important "You Are Here" spot, the destination you had chosen and the rest stops along the way. Did you stick to your route? Did you change course once your trip began and take a more scenic route,still arriving at your destination? Are you still en route? Were you impatient-choosing to drive straight through no matter how exhausted the non-stop trip might make you? Or,like me....did you somehow hit every speed bump and pothole in existence making it necessary to not only slow your pace but forcing you to take detours you couldn't find on your map? Did you become hopelessly lost?
My journey from there to here is nothing like the trip I had planned. Somewhere between starting my car and backing out of the driveway my map blew out the window and away with the wind. There I was....embarking on a voyage of epic proportions with no map, no gps and sadly,no sense of direction. To say I got "turned around" more than once would be to put it mildly.
Ten years. To some it sounds like a brief moment, to others a lifetime. To me-I know that a lifetime can happen in the blink of an eye that makes up those ten years. Ten years can bring an abundance of joy,immeasurable pleasure and more blessings than a single person could deserve. Ten years can bring an excruciating pain most people cannot fathom and many would never survive. Ten years can shatter who you thought you were and show you who you truly have become.
In this decade I have experienced two marriages,one divorce and the birth of four children. (Oddly enough this also means I have officially given birth in each of the last three decades!!) I have lost a cousin,an uncle,two grandmothers,watched my husband's grandfather slip away and said goodbye to two of my own babies. I spent two years fighting to bring home two of my children when they were kidnapped by their father and have spent the three years since watching them blossom into amazing young ladies. I witnessed the transition of two of my sons from little boys to young men to adults and am still in awe of their greatness. In this decade I have forged unbreakable bonds with some of the most amazing women you will ever meet ( BLM's I love you all) and for the first time in my life established a relationship with the only father I have ever known.I watched two of my sisters get married and became an aunt to six more nieces and nephews (to add to the other eight I already had.) I watched helplessly as my son had his heart truly broken (shattered is more like it) for the first time and witnessed his journey back to himself afterward with more pride than I can describe.
This decade has taken me to some of my highest moments and seen me fall into the abysmal grief that follows losing a child. This decade has demolished the image of who I thought I was and altered the course of who I imagined I would be. I have discovered that while ten years ago I believed myself to be a strong-willed and persevering kind of person I now know that I am strong beyond even my own realization and can survive anything because ,quite frankly-I have.
Where has the last ten years taken you? And where will you go in the next ten?