Kelly and I had a great discussion yesterday about change while Lorena and Christian were off at their cub scout meeting. I remember when I was young that I was often sad that time was passing so quickly. I was afraid I was missing out on something or that I had not done what I should have done at certain stages in my life. It is funny that it took me until middle age to realize that that kind of thinking is a waste of time. It is one thing to want to make the best of the time we have, but entirely another to let our love for the past prevent us from moving into the future. I think the fact that Kelly has had such a wonderful childhood increases her angst, because she does not want to lose that joy. I am hardly one to talk about such things because I had much the same feelings.
It is amazing that it took me so long to realize that the very best we can do at any stage of our life is to love everything possible about our life. Right now, I have lots of responsibilities that would have paralyzed me fifteen years ago. They are not much different than the responsibilities of others who are at the same place in life as I, but I worry about them a lot. I would not give them up for anything. I love my age and the place God has given me. I think I learned that attitude from Grandpa Milo. He was in some very ugly and difficult situations, many, if not most, of his own doing. Nevertheless, he struggled on and enjoyed life. He took the attitude that how he got into any situation was not as relevant as the fact that he was there and it was a waste of time to bemoan how life was treating him. I am sure he is a much wiser man for having had to extricate himself from such difficulties.
One time when I was feeling sorry for myself he told me a story about when he was in the Army. It was during the Korean War and he had just finished Basic Training in Alabama. He had borrowed a car to go visit some friends from church who lived way out in the country. The car had a flat tire out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in an Alabama rainstorm that is a harder rain than we in the Pacific Northwest ever experience. He felt sorry for himself for awhile, but then it dawned on him that at that time the next day, he would be in a warm bed. When I get worried about where I am and any current difficulty, I often think of that.
