Here I am

My dream, it’s something I have had more or less since I was a very little girl, I’ve always loved nature, wild places, as a young child I traveled through the desert with my family on our way from California to Texas on 2 separate occasions. We traveled over the road so I had the opportunity to watch as miles and miles of untamed, wild land slipping past the window. We would stop to take breaks, to eat, to stretch our legs, and to allow 3 young children to get some pent up energy out before the next leg of the trip. Not having a lot of money, we fixed sandwiches and slept in the old Dodge van my dad converted into a camper van the summer before.

Being a nature child, I hated wearing shoes, my mother was convinced I would step on a scorpion or even worse, a snake as I ran, barefoot across the still hot asphalt in the dark, once I hit the hard packed sand I was in heaven. The sky was vast, the stars innumerable, the cool desert wind blowing my curly hair back, yes this was the life I wanted. And no, I didn’t step on anything :)

As an adult, I had the opportunity to visit and play in the mountains, these were the Pacific Northwest mountains, juicy, wet, green, alive with more life per square foot than anywhere else I had been before. Well that nailed it for me, I wanted to live in the desert AND mountains.

Some 8 years ago my dream came true, my hubby and I shut our life down in the city and moved 500 miles west, in far western Texas, on a mountain side, in the high desert, a paradise like no other. It’s rough and tumble, but a paradise for me none the less.

Today I look back upon my life, all the bumps, all the good and bad times, all the seeming dead ends and U turns, and here I am, I still have contact with that little girl who so desperately wanted to live in a wild place, she is happily living inside of me. Today I turned half a century old, I feel so blessed to have good health, good family, good friends, a great church and I get to spend it here, living like I want to live.

I think one of the things I learned about life is how to be content, how to be happy, no matter what is going on around me, I cannot control all of the exterior things, but I have absolute control over how I deal with it between my own two ears. Being content doesn’t mean settling for less than, there is nothing wrong with reaching for better, reaching for more, but it’s good to have a contented attitude about where you are now, WHILE you are aiming for another goal. Enjoy the now, experience the now, love yourself in the now while working your way toward the future.