"This is your life, are you who you want to be? This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be, when the world was younger and you had everything to lose..."
- This is Your Life by Switchfoot
I was thinking about home today while walking the dog, and I thought back to some of my most favorite memories. Today's recollection was about my cousin Ashlee and the games we used to play when she came over to my house. We loved to play "house," and we really got into it.
We had these amazingly life like Lee Middleton dolls that served as our babies. I remember that I had a little auburn haired boy named Joseph Tyler after my daddy. We did more than just play with dolls though; we would invent entire lives for ourselves to act out in my backyard. Most days, I was a famous writer, and my blue bicycle was actually a BMW Z3 convertible. I can't remember what Ashlee's profession used to be, but she always drove a really random type of car. Ha! I do remember that much... We would kiss our imaginary husbands goodbye in the playground clubhouse where we lived, and then we'd go off to work on our bikes. Our office was in the garage, and we'd run errands on the way home. We even had a special spot next to the drive way that served as the "bank." How we could pretend to be grown-ups for hours, I don't know. I certainly don't have that kind of attention span for "playing pretend" anymore, but I love imagining how my nine year old self would think of my twenty-three and a half year old self...
I'm not a writer (yet). My BMW is actually a spiffy little Corolla named Caroline that is much more practical yet still just as loved by me. I married the man of my dreams, but I don't have that little baby at this point and don't plan on one for a while. My real life is not the one I made up years ago in my parent's back yard, but you know what? I think if I could go back and tell her about it, nine year old Liz would be stoked about her life. The song that I quoted at the beginning could be extremely painful to listen to if I allowed myself to be burdened by regret. However, it's not hard to listen to. In fact, it is one of my absolute favorites because this IS my life, and I am EXACTLY who I want to be. Not that I can't be improved upon, that's always going to be true. However, I'm very happy with who I am and who I am becoming. And I'm thankful that I can say that; I imagine a lot of people can't.
What would your nine year old self think of you today? I truly hope yours would feel proud of you. Even if they aren't, it's never to late to make a change. Remember who you are. Remember how special God made you. There's only one you in the whole wide world, so be sure to represent yourself right.
LOVE this post.
ReplyDeleteI never really concocted a distinct man I would marry, so I'm still clear on that. I had several career fantasies growing up though: first I wanted to be a teacher (Mom even bought me a dry-erase board so I could teach multiplication to my baby dolls in the basement); then I wanted to be a doctor (which really wouldn't work out with the 22 year old Monica who vomits at the mention of more than a tablespoon of blood); and then I set my hopes higher with the dream of being a checkout girl. I remember one Christmas, my grandparents gave me a fake cash register with a scanner and a conveyor belt and all. I rang up every item in the house (probably several times) until my cash register stopped making sounds and the red light in the scanner no longer worked. It wasn't until I was nineteen and got a part-time job at Target that I realized I must have been high on drugs thinking that was a good life-long career to entertain. I can tell you one thing though, I never thought I'd be a geologist.
I remember the Lee Middleton dolls, too! My mom wouldn't buy one for me (she had just shelled out a large sum of cash for an American Girl doll) but I always coveted Lindsay Piland's growing up.
Wonderful post! Brought back some great memories! Thanks Liz!