I came across a Facebook post that intrigued me.
Can you find/share 7 photos that define and describe your life up and to this point.
What a difficult task!!!!
What a challenge!!!
A life is defined by SO many memories.
So many photographs.
So many moments.
So many tears..
So many mementos
So much laughter.
Totally cheated and am thankful for the picture frame format on today's apps.
Here are my 7 photo choices:
It begins with a birth.
A beginning.
Provided a childhood without boundaries.
A fairy tale of imaginative adventure.
So many wonderful childhood memories.
Haircuts in the dining room from Dad.
The protective love and support of a mother.
Always good for a hug.
A nurturer and confidante from the very beginning.
The love of four grandparents.
Fried chicken and blueberry pie.
Molasses cookies.
Blondie and his spittoon.
Christmas eves of long gone by.
Childlike wonder and excitement.
Summers spent in Minnesota and Butter Brickle ice cream
Forts in the woods.
Planned parades.
Forcing family to sit through performances I created.
Tears over skinned knees at weddings and bike rides.
Laughter and no parameters.
Swimming in the lake and innocently jumping in.
My family.
High school sweethearts.
Butterflies and prom.
Driving the back roads.
Developing a life.
Marriage and sharing cake together with well wishes of all.
Growing.
Evolving.
Turning troubled and turbulent.
A parting.
Second weddings that no one speaks about.
New lives.
New loved ones.
Unconventional.
Wild and crazy and unbound.
Vast and important.
Different.
But looking back from this vantage point, would never change a thing on this life course.
I would go through the turbulence and pain and tears to have this now family together and a part of me.
Something was missing...
A yearning for Prince Charming.
Yearning to have someone in my life who knew me...
Yearning for that special someone.
Frustrated with my life for so many years, wondering where he was
SO many misses...
Not realizing that my life was SO busy that I truly could not have logically allowed someone else in because I had filled my life with work, work, and more work.
Building that resume and filling life with being on the go.
Still continued to yearn and lament for someone who would grow to intimately know all of me and wouldn't run screaming.
A true love.
A true friend.
A love of a lifetime
A forever.
And then I found you.
And all else faded away.
The clouds cleared and I knew I had found someone special.
I am so blessed to have found someone who completes me and works beside me towards a better life for both of us.
I am grateful for your love. The joy and giggles you bring me.
Your sense of humor and the sparkle in your eyes when you look at me.
I am grateful for your support.
The last year has not been easy.
But you have been there through it all.
Holding me.
Supporting me.
Sometimes not knowing what to say but just being there for me.
I could not have made it throughout this year without you, my love.
I will always love you to the moon and back.
For the love of theatre.
For the love of creativity and having an outlet on which to express my inner thoughts.
To bring characters to life, deeply, emotionally, physically and to be able to show the cracks in the persona.
Intimate.
RAW.
The base on which many friendships in my life are built.
Many friends met on the boards and in the limelight.
Dear friendships that remain even today.
From Mrs. Simek's second grade classroom that Christmas to the stage in the gymnasium and a bald cap.
From my very first community on the Belle Mehus stage with Jane and Shirley to the stage at Century High School donning Biblical robes.
To the most rewarding and difficult and beautiful and raw and poignant roles of my entire life.
Medora and all its splendor poured into the Badlands encouraging me to come home to ND.
A bawdy patriot in 1776 with a big personality and a flair for the bold.
A little Devil with a goal in mind showcasing fabulous fire.
A Younger Brother with a passion so see a different world.
My Angel. My Love. A role of a lifetime.
An Emcee where nothing is as it seems and no one is safe.
A mother with an inner sense of fabulousness, a wardrobe and love for her family that transcends hatred and bigotry.
No boundaries. Just honesty and humanity.
But I struggle with what is next. What is the next role? I just don't know and that leaves me uneasy and at odds with myself at times.
This is one of my most cherished moments of my entire life.
To have all my parents with me on this day.
My wedding day.
With so much happiness surrounding us.
Knowing that love had brought us on a journey together.
So much to get us to this day.
The journey was rough and sometimes not so great.
Coming out and all of the struggles that ensued.
The battles between Mom and Dad.
Not always happy but also a truce.
For the love they each had found in their own lives. The struggles to get to that point in their lives.
Allowing someone else in behind the wall.
Wanting a King or Queen to come in and carry them away.
Finding love and contentment.
And all-in-all, this moment.
We made it to this moment.
I am grateful for this moment, frozen in time.
I will cherish this moment in my heart always.
This was the moment frozen in my mind...
Somehow knowing that the cancer was lurking here among us.
Not sure what that uneasiness meant for all of us...
The uncertainty of what that meant.
But so grateful for this happy moment.
To share with family and friends from near and far.
Grateful for their journeys to be there with the both of us.
For the hugs, the toasts, the laughter and tears.
A day we will never forget.
The friendships that have stood the tests of time.
Each one of these friends have been there through thick and thin.
There are a few missing from this moment.
For that I apologize...but know that
these are the friendships that began all the way back in elementary school...junior high...high school.
Each one of my friends have seen me at my worst.
Supported me when I was struggling.
Supported me when I was at my best.
Hugged me.
Loved me.
Grabbed my booty just to get my face to turn red.
(which it always does)
That is true friendship...knowing which buttons to push.
Just to see my face turn red...
There is MAGIC shared here.
There is music and art and theater and joy shared here in these friendships.
Some of us believed in the power of "sitting round making music all day long."
There are years and years and years of friendship just in this one picture and for each of them
(and those not pictured)
...absolute GRATITUDE.
Thank you for your friendship.
Thank you for your love.
I have recently blogged about this photo but it truly is one of my most cherished,
most favorite photographs.
Kept on a bookshelf inside my classroom.
Explained every year to each student who enters my classroom walls.
It is important.
It is poetic.
It is symbolic.
Looking beyond and outward towards the possibility of the horizon.
Looking out toward a better future and forgetting the past.
Sharing this moment with important loved ones and allowing them into your heart.
Looking forward to infinite possibilities.
Imagining a vibrant future.
And being grateful for each moment.
Because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Feeling blessed for life's adventures
Small or large.
Rough or smooth.
All life defining.
All important.
All beautiful in its own certain way.
Grateful for it all.
Carry on my fellow travelers and make the most of it all.
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