Reflections

The mind is an amazing thing.  It can hold so much.  I found an old record on iTunes that I hadn't heard since I was in college so I bought it and have been listening to it on my walks the past couple of days.  Just hearing the tunes and the words transported me back to a time long before any of my current life.  It got me thinking about what has happened since that time and where I am now.  Also, this is the first summer without any of my crazy boys.  The only ones left in our home are the quiet, subdued, solitary people.  In looking around my home and yard I have found pockets of loneliness.  I see places that used to be filled with loud, crazy, happy people.  I see things I have collected to accommodate all of these people.  I could never get enough chairs and tables for my yard and now nobody sits on these chairs or at these tables.  I am ready to give them away to my children who have moved away.  They have no value to me anymore.  It's the same with the swing that faces the basketball court where I watched those balls go through that hoop a billion times.  It's so quiet now.  I have been known to collect couches.  Yes, you read that right, couches.  I have tons of them.  There were always multiple groups in my house and they all needed to have places to congregate.  There were the ones who just wanted to talk, the ones who played games and the ones who watched movies or games on T.V.  They all had to have a couch.  Now I have many empty couches waiting to go to children who need them in their little starter homes.  I have gotten used to the quiet and usually relish the peace and tranquility of my home with just my oldest and youngest living there.  I enjoy having the time to talk to each of them and give them my undivided attention.  I can see, sometimes, why people only have 1 or 2 children.  It's kind of fun to be able to fit into one car and to be able to do things spontaneously because you only have a couple of schedules to work around.  It's kind of weird though to see rooms in my house that used to be filled to overflowing with people now being reassigned to being the man cave or the sitting room or having a bathroom that only guests use because everybody else has their own.  I have children who will soon be making their own homes so I find myself looking around at all of the things I have collected and thinking of who would need what most.  I don't mind giving it all to them because I bought it all for them in the first place.  Without them, I don't really need it.  It reminded me of the plan of salvation and the progression between one life and the next.  In the pre existence I'm sure we didn't need "things" at all.  While on this earth we spend our time gathering things and making memories and then when we leave this earth we have no use for things anymore.  All we take with us to the next life are the memories and the knowledge we have gathered.  Even though I have quite a bit of time left on this earth I can feel myself slowly tagging the material items I have gathered into groups for that big garage sale of my life.  I will gradually give most everything I have to my children so that they can start the cycle with their families.  There really is a "circle of life". The End.