Refresh

Seems like a good time to refresh. Change the page. Change the title. Look forward to the new. What's better than old times? New times. As adolescents and young adults, people spend a lot of time looking forward to the future. Envisioning life. Making rite of passage checklists. All those years of staying up late, looking at stars, dreaming of what life would be. It's a very romantic time in life. The very unfortunate thing that I have noticed is how many people let the romance with life die when the to do list is all checked off. Now you've got the spouse, and the kids, and the house, and the job, and the cars, and all the passages so romanticized by teen angst. Now what? Become consumed with all the responsibilites of day to day life? Spend the rest of days cleaning the gutters, doing the yard work and washing endless loads of laundry? Surely we don't spend all those years dreaming just to end up mindlessly completing all the obligatory chores in life and seeking nothing more. Everyone knows someone that tells too many stories of old times. "Oh, those were the days!" Really? Youth was great. They were good days. But were they "THE" days? What's wrong with today? I have to wonder, at what point in life do we switch over from looking forward to the rest of our lives to looking back at what was? I turned 30. It made me a little sad. I felt some nostalgia over old times. But I also realized how much I still have ahead of me and what I have right now. Once I checked all the things off my list I became afraid to grow older. When I was a kid, I would look at my parents, who sat in the same living room night after night, weekend after weekend and think......being a grown up sucks. I honestly thought that at some point, that is just what you do. You stay home, raise your kids, lose touch with old friends, and have nothing much to do other than maintain. I'm relieved to find out I was wrong. I've watched several of my friends fall into the "I'm married and have children so I have to stay home and be boring and do nothing for myself ever" pit. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel sorry for them. I can only hope that the same passion that fueled my youth, will carry me throughout my entire life. Fight the fizzle! I love my life. I can't imagine not being a "doer". I like to go and do. Pretty much anything works. I refuse to stifle myself just for the simple fact that I have a family to raise. I want my kids to grow up knowing that getting older is nothing to be afraid of. I don't feel like I have to give up the things in life that are out there to be enjoyed just because I have a lot of responsibilities. I enjoy living life and while life can be more than exhausting at times it can not make us lazy! How many times have I heard old friends use their spouses or children as scapegoats for damn near everything? More than I can count. I'm tired of hearing how having a family is your disability! I'm looking forward to the future. I'm enjoying today. I hope that I can grow older knowing that while the past was good, today and tomorrow are even better. Bring on the 30's. I'm ready for them now.