Thirty-four years. Hallways, rooms, walls, and carpet. Memories made. All have laughed and wept.
In the quiet house, I hear the echoes of the past. The sounds of children growing, playing, learning, discovering. A family. Living. Living the battles of life.
The voices are loud, but distant. How quickly time has flown. Vacancies, not just in the rooms of the house, but in the rooms of the heart.
If wall
s could capture speech and windows the day-to-day scenes, we could play it all back and re-live the best times and learn from our mistakes. What to do, when the aged become like the innocent? When the elder and wiser, become the weaker, the smaller?
Life moves on. We’re ushered into a new stage, a new era, letting go, we’re stepping beyond, and moving to the next rung. Moving across the bar. We all will eventually cross the bar.
God, in his wisdom, allowed man to age and become weaker, while the young are strong and healthy and unwise… and some retain their foolishness from youth. Some don’t. Who can tell who becomes who. If we weren’t foolish while we’re young perhaps we’d never fall in love. But, only God knows why.
Lives moves on in an ebb and flow and the place we land in the distant sea is not the place we saw from the shore.
Losing what I’ve had, seeing what I’ve missed… moves me to a place beyond sentimentality. It’s reality. But busyness. Activities. Priorities. Keep. us. from. relationships. We don’t pause long enough; we just don’t have the time. We move, and flutter away.
The light from the shore still shines, bringing us home. But in time, God takes the lights home. And they shine from afar.
Beautiful, Prasanta! Beautiful imagery. Beautiful language. Beautiful message. Thank you.
Thank you, Cindee, for your words; they are such an encouragement.
you make me long to live in the present. fully, here, now. thank you for this gift, friend.
Emily, thank you so much for reading and for your kind words; so nice to be part of this group, new friend!
This is beautiful, but it makes me a bit sad. I don’t quite know why. Perhaps because I am young and foolish and 34 years is almost my lifetime and I cannot imagine living in one place that long and it is even more heartbreaking to ponder leaving after that time. But like I said, it is probably because I am young and sometimes foolish. Thank you for shifting my vision, opening a different window for me to peer through.
Joybird, it is a bit sad. I wrote this when I was visiting the home I grew up in, where my parents still live. I live far away, and I was reminiscing and remembering — what it was like for me, and how it must be for them, with an empty nest… and how I’d love to be living a bit closer. I’m not that much older than you :)… and stepping back in time made me ponder how much in our lives today is the way we all really thought it would be. Thanks so much for reading. I enjoyed looking at your blog (through imperfect prose).