A LOT OF LIVING TO DO

Life is too short. Really? I don’t think so. I find my life not too short, or too long, too hot or too cold. Most of the time, like Goldilocks of the Fairy Tale, I find my life just right.

Recently a friend of mine went to visit her in-laws for a few days. Earlier she had visited her family in another city and province of Canada. In both cases, she came Home, happy to be back. I often feel the same way. When I look at and/or experience someone else’s life, I realize that mine suits me very well.

Sometimes, however, you have to go a long way to realize that there really is NO PLACE LIKE HOME.

I have just been thinking and writing about some of the trips which I have taken over the years. Along the way I met a lot of people and saw a lot of new things, including how other people live their lives.

We take Holidays for a lot of different reasons. The main one for most of us is, I think, to get a change and/or rest from the routine of our daily lives. Often this requirement is met. The Holiday experience, however, may be a good one or a bad one. Like so much in Life, it depends on our expectations and our perspective.

When I was in my 20’s, I admired and maybe even envied a few of my friends a little because they were travelling to new, and to me, exciting places.

For example, one was going to visit her Cousins and her Father in Hungary between School years. She did this a few times. It was only one year when I realized she had come Home unenthused about that Summer abroad that it came out that much had changed in her Father’s life and she no longer felt a part of it. It taught me to be careful about projecting my own Wanderlust, and maybe even being envious about someone else’s experiences.

Another Friend wrote me, after many years as a Flight Attendant for Air Canada, Air Iran and British Air that, she was getting Married and that part of the Honeymoon would be in Timbuktu. I had to look up where this was. I think it is safe to say, I am still impressed today by this one.

Whenever I answered the phone calls from another Friend, my first question was always, Where are You? Because she was always travelling. I have to admit I was impressed, until, I went with my Brother to meet her at one of Toronto’s elegant Downtown Hotels. My Brother was meeting her for the first time. I am sure, he saw, as I did, a very attractive, elegant Woman. He also saw that she was ‘running’ around the World, and possibly from herself. I was shocked and so was she, when he saw this and said so.

I woke up this morning thinking about Snails and the empty Shells we find when we walk along a Beach. The Ocean waves wash over them and we spot them, large and small, and pick them up. They are empty.

We later learn that they were the Homes of Snails and that they were discarded when the Animal outgrew them. In effect, the Snails, moved to a new House and into a new Shell. We do this too, as we go through life.

We move house, we go to different places such as Schools and Churches and Communities and Cities. We meet people and change where we live, both with our families and later on, on our own or when we make our own new Family.

We outgrow various people and things and generally, we move on to something that fits us better at that time in our lives.

Some parts of the life process are happy, some are sad, some just are what we find ourselves doing at a particular time in our lives. Occasionally, we wonder how we got where we are. In bad times, or ones we consider tough, we wonder where to go or what to do next.

We carry our lives via memories and possessions around with us, some even literally on our backs, in Knapsacks.

Home we eventually learn, is where we are. The lesson we finally learn, whether early or later on in life, is that HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

Home is where we return to. Home is a place in our hearts as much as it is a physical location.

Meanwhile, we have a lot of living to do. Nice to know. Better when we appreciate it and live it fully.