I sent a card to my parents this week after some holy reflections last weekend. They will likely read most of what’s inside the card here at the same time as you before the post office is even able to deliver it. As a loyal blog follower, you are really getting and inside peak behind the scenes this week!
It’s graduation season, and this year I have found myself old enough for MANY of my dear friends to have kids graduating from high school. Time is crazy and a mind bending jedi trick, but that topic is for another day and another post!
As I simmer in the reality of the aging process of life I paused to view the world through the perspective of youth. I realize how advantageous it can be to not know what you don’t know. It creates fearlessness…which is beautiful… and sometimes reckless. Ah, to be young again!
In my reflections two main things really hit me.
Youthfulness can be a real ‘for granted taking’ era. Often times not intentionally, because again, you don’t know what you don’t know. When you’ve never gone without–mad props to all the parents out there providing for their families–you don’t know how good you have it. And try as parents do, lived experience has a way of cultivating gratitude in a way that no parent can demonstrate, teach, or show through preaching or even a gratitude practice.
While this might not ring true for you, my personality has always led me to jump in the fire and see what it’s all about. Because of this, I probably would have greatly benefitted from a mission trip or visiting a third world country at a young age. Just a random thought for anyone out there raising a child with a similar disposition to mine. 🙂
Secondly, we feel things as we get older unless we allow life to harden our hearts. And what a trip it is to find ourselves moved by simple things we’ve not stopped to notice before! Recently this has included deep appreciation for a long-term friendship my parents have shared with a kind and beautiful soul. Man, it’s sacred to have committed people to do the ups and downs of life with you! Or the awe-inspiring beauty in the sky, the flowers, and the unspoken communication with animals/pets. And being completely mesmerized by the physics that keeps my two-wheel mobile (motorcycle) upright when leaning through a curve.
I have felt so much of all the feels throughout the last two years! Often being stretched to the very max only to expand and be able to hold and experience life so much more deeply. I believe this is the softening process, the part that takes us from the ‘for granted taking’ youth to the wisdom-soaked appreciation for everything in life. Experience holds a richness money cannot buy!
But what I can’t imagine is if I feel my experiences so fully–literally tears trickle down my face as I type this– what is felt by those who have gone before me, especially my parents? I reflected on some of the tough decisions I’ve made over the last two years, and even before they knew all of the details or saw the evidence for themselves they accepted, they loved, and they supported.
Thank you, Mom & Dad, for loving me so well even when I wasn’t in my most lovable era! Receiving this gift allows me to pay it forward in this wild experience of life!
Unconditional love is something we all deserve to experience! If you haven’t been blessed with knowing unconditional love yet, please come step into my world. It will soften you, it will add richness to life you didn’t know existed, and it will change the way you see, treat, and love yourself!
Peace & Love,
Janessa