Sometimes repeating something from your past can make you realize just how much the future has changed.
This past weekend, I indulged my inner-dork and met up with some old friends to go to a comic convention about an hour side. It’s one of those occasional traditions that we’ve done since adolescence. Some things have changed – I find myself rarely buying anything at these shows anymore. It’s more about the camaraderie and hanging out with old friends again more than anything else. The car ride and lunch always tend to be the highlights these days more so than the actual comic events themselves.
This time was no different. I didn’t purchase anything, but we had a great lunch and some great laughs on the way up. On the way home, though, I found myself a bit reflective, thinking back to those trips over the years. More notably, I thought about how life used to be AFTER those trips over the years.
As I stared out the window, I thought about how, for so many years, those trips, while fun, would always end with my returning home to my empty apartment, setting any purchases I made down on the nightstand for later reading, and then, that was it. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate solitude, but after a while, solitude can turn to emptiness.
Today, I have a wonderful wife, a happy little son, and a trio of wonderful cats (also my sons, only feline) to come home to – a shelter of love that instills me with a smile and joyous feeling the minute I walk into the door.
When I looked back on how life had been, I felt sad, touched by a sense of sadness that never quite resonated as much as when I my life felt so filled. There are moments in life that have the ability to be the turning point for change. They are all dependent on the choices we make at those moments. As I reflect back on the past, there will always be things I wish I had done differently, but the choices that led me down the path that would yield my wonderful family, I would never change.
There’s a lot of times when I get frustrated or upset about something – whether it’s the house, the neighborhood, things at work, money, etc. All of that, though, seems trivial, when I realize just how lucky I am to have as much as I do. In the day to day hustle and bustle, it can get very easy to focus on the negative or what APPEARS to be “missing.” .
I may not have indulged my inner-geek with purchases at the comic convention, but I indulged my inner peace by looking at the past, realizing how empty it would be had life not taken the path it had, and coming to the realization of just how fortunate I am for all I have.
The Dorky Daddy 