But it did start me thinking. I like to read my email in the morning, first thing. That's from my Mom. A muffin and tea to start my day. Mom again. Futzing around; my Dad. Taking anything and everything apart and putting it together again...Mom and Dad.
Many of my nuances, habits and traits have slowly marinated over the years to create my current persona, but it wasn't until today when I easily morphed into a comparison mindset. I began to unravel and then ravel back again those components of me that I have borrowed from my parents. Maybe borrowed is the wrong word. These aspects that have come from them have actually been betrothed to me. I wear them proudly now, but this hasn't always been true. This expands my thinking from the kitchen, to my parents, to myself, to life.
I wonder about the river that is our life. How some changes are difficult; hard as a boulder strategically placed in a riverbed diverting water against its will. Other changes evolve; wandering into our lives gently, quietly, effortlessly. While still other changes make us feel we have stumbled into a whirlpool; unable to see a way out.
We create dams to try and curb the flow of life, allowing only small waterfalls to be created, until a deluge of events causes the dam to be breached, cracked, overwhelmed. We attempt to navigate the river. We draw plans, create contingencies and safeguards, construct pathways, streets, and highways. We have savings and checking, trusts and wills, torts and laws, all to direct us, guide us down this river.
Our parents teach us, give us guidance, help us navigate this river of life. They are strict, short, impatient, not to deter or blanket our enthusiasm, but because they see what litters the pathway, and they don't want our unbridled momentum to collide fatally with unseen boulders.
We fight our parents, confuse our ego with our knowledge, determined to steer ourselves in our own way. We smirk with disbelief that our parents would dare to compare their experiences with our own. We know that our lives, our river, is more dangerous, more technical, and is strewn with whitewater rapids that they cannot even begin to fathom. Their War, their depression, their economy, their opinions fall at our feet where we squash their importance.
And then one day, we stand in the kitchen, making breakfast. In the quiet, all the words, all the actions of our parents, stand with us. They only meant to give us the best of themselves. Only meant to point things out, to guide, not steer. Some may have accomplished this with greater dexterity. Some may have weathered the storms better. But, on this day, in this quiet, they are here. In me. As me.
I am determined to remove my dams. One at a time. To allow life to flow. To follow my river. It may not be my parents river. In fact, it will not be my parents river. Nor anyone else's. Life is like that you know. Its unique. And the thought that in this world of 6 billion people no two lives are the same, is both wonderful and insane. I will take those traits that my parents have betrothed to me, and use them to float down the river of my life.
All that and a bowl of oatmeal and granola. Life is Good.
