The Greatest Gift: The Unknown

It should come as no surprise at this point, to regular readers of my blog, that I am not shy about sharing with you what makes me… ME.

This morning I saw a DVD that I had been waiting for, sitting on my counter in the kitchen — images from my family’s Zip Lining experience in Mexico four months ago.

What got to me were these two photos:

These pictures were taken 350 feet up in the air, with nothing more than our trust in the guides that supplied us with the equipment and our belief that we could enjoy the beauty of what was beneath — Rocks, Trees, Rain, Bugs, and god forbid… the unknown — all at just $35 per person. 🙂

Is it not the greatest gift to watch the people you brought into the world through love, make choices that you wished you had had the guts to make, but never did?

In My case… well… it took me until now (at 40 years old). But in my kids case… well… you can see from the pics that they don’t have the legs of a 40-year-old. 🙂

There is only one area in which I still have to work really hard on at this point with my kids—who understand that everything their Mom and Dad do is simply a byproduct of Dad doing what he has to do and Mom doing what she has to do. We are who we are.

But it’s hard to explain to them how a 40-year-old woman who has experienced so much can topple under the weight at times — how my brain goes into overdrive to the point where eating, sleeping, and functioning do not come to me in the same way they do to most. This is a difficult thing to explain to my two most important reasons for living, to my two most important and loving gifts — my son and my daughter — to whom I am so lucky to be Mom.

Last night on 60 Minutes I watched a report that kept me up most of the night.

The report was about a sacred area, foreign to most of us in America. A part of the world where nature is untouched by all things we think we can’t live without. A place where the sounds of the rain hitting the leaves cannot be duplicated with musical instruments, where a never-before-seen male bird turns from a little shy guy into fricken BATMAN to woo a female bird — and to top off the whole incredible experience the male bird gives the female bird 20 minutes on a small dark branch in the middle of nowhere after spending 23 hours building a stack of branches and laying out a variety of colorful rocks just to get her attention. And if he’s lucky…

It was too much for my brain to handle — and also too much for me to try to explain to my son and daughter that no matter what happens in life and how many chances we make, we should always look forward to the unknown. The one thing about nature that will never change is that it will always be the one place that we all, as humans, can’t control but can admire.

To the Men and Woman that will not understand this short story: I have no comment.
To the Men and Woman that do get this short story: it’s about time!
To my Son: If you have to wear a colorful coat and dance for the girl of your dreams, it’s worth it.
To my Daughter: If you have to wear a colorful coat and dance for the man of your dreams, it’s worth it.