Memories and Dreams

A Coney Island beach day with Sophie

I eat slowly and drive fast. I like long walks to nowhere and endless talks about nothing. I enjoy being outside, hiking, climbing, jogging, and nature watching. I sometimes go from 7 p.m. on a Friday until 8:30 a.m. the next Monday without leaving my apartment.  I love to read and watch movies and write things because I love stories. I eat crap at random times in the day and can go 36 hours solely subsisting on mint mentos.

I make plans to learn how to read music, practice my violin again, and go to grad school; but I almost always seem to wind up at home during my free time, planning and not doing. I'm hard on myself and always find time to remind myself that I'm not doing anything substantial with my life.

However, when I'm old and sitting on my huge porch in a rocking chair drinking sweet tea or lemonade and eating Biscoff cookies, I'm not going to remember crying because of him or the nights I stayed home and wallowed in self pity. I'm going to remember making bad decisions on a Friday night with my new Romanian downstairs neighbor because he asked what I was doing later and I didn't have a good response. I'm going to remember that time I vomited on my favorite area rug after too many Halloween drinks and ended up throwing it away out of laziness and shame.

A rare day of "doing" in DC

When I'm talking to my grandkids, I'm going to tell them about the time I planned a solo camping trip over Thanksgiving weekend because I felt like it. I'm going to talk about my sisters and my parents and my ever evolving relationship with God. I'll tell them about all the road trips I took in my very first car, Fiesta, just because I loved the feel of the road beneath her tires and the radio up loud. I'll tell them about the time I drove 17 hours in one weekend just to sing at my friend's wedding and couldn't function properly for the next three days at work because I was so tired.

I want to remember the books I've read, the people I've met, the animals I've pet, the mountains I've climbed, the trails I've hiked, and the men I've loved. I want to show my future kids my house in Daphne, Alabama and blow their minds with the unimaginable beauty that is our expansive yard with the gully in the back.

There's still so much I want. I want to travel to other continents and feel a different land mass move beneath my feet. I want to see western America. I want to drive and fly and sail. I want to explore and learn and dream and accomplish great things. But it's important for me to remember that I've already done things, too. I have accomplished things, and even though I don't feel they're great, these memories that I've made are what I'm going to remember when I'm sitting on that porch.