So Far

Our bedroom windows are open.  I can hear all the neighborhood kids playing on our street - a raucous, post-dinner game that seems to say, "Summer's not over till we say it's over!"  Darkness fell hours ago, but the kids' energy is high, even as a sudden gust of wind heralds the setting-in of a predicted overnight chill.

Sometimes when I actually have a moment to pause and enjoy such moments of domestic contentment, I glance at my life and ask:  Are you still where you wanted to be when you imagined being here years ago?  

I am sitting at home after a ten-hour work day trying to make plans for my daughter's upcoming home spa party.  Fall, my favorite season, is here de facto if not de jure.  I made a good dinner and everyone ate well.  My husband and I love each other.  My adorable son just knocked on the door to let us know the neighborhood kids were moving a little further down the block.  (I knew that, of course, because I can see much of our street from the bedroom window and hear the kids' voices, among them my daughter's clarion soprano singing something from Spring Awakening.)

So far, the answer to my question is still yes.

My thoughts tonight were spurred in part by this article posted on Facebook by my former thesis advisor.  It asks, indirectly,  What else might you have been doing in life?  Do you regret not choosing that path instead of this one?  What is it you really want?

Should I have been instead a dancer / writer / editor / home-maker / chef / U.N. interpreter / Paris shop-keeper / art collector / philologist / anthropologist / wedding planner / chocolate taster / lab technician / movie industry something-or-other / neonatologist / librarian / relief worker / theologian / baker / museum curator / alpaca farmer?

I suppose these kinds of questions place us well within Erikson's generativity versus stagnation phase of life, which feels about right to me.

The kids have just come in.  I can hear them play-arguing about who won the last race outside.  The neighborhood parents have called their young ones home to safe havens and warm beds.  The street is quiet now, except for crickets.

My thoughts are loud and clear:  this is definitely the life I want.

[Photo:  me and a friend, at around ten years of age, doing a Czech folk dance or something like it.]