I saw someone recently that, when last I saw him, was a boy. It surprised me a little to see the man he has become; a little taller, a little leaner, the exuberance of youth replaced with the purpose of manhood. We didn't speak, it wasn't the time for pleasantries, but I did watch him for a while, marveling at the grace that had replaced the boy's awkward movements, the confidence and competence he displayed as he moved about, the courtesy with which he greeted those near him as he went about his business on the altar.
I glanced down at my hands, clutched around a prayer book that I still needed to say a few words I had sworn repeatedly I would memorize, seeing a bent finger that came about from one of my many awkward moments, a scar from a childhood surgery, a slight bump on my wrist from a middle-school attempt to be athletic, all those imperfections that bring about a sigh, a wince, or just a sad smile when I see them. The changes he would notice in me were not to my advantage, I recall thinking. I had never been graceful, my scars spoke to that. I was never a raving beauty, my features adequate, but hardly those that called for a second glance. My skills had not improved, if anything, I had allowed them to lapse a bit. Time, I thought, as I watched him glide through the door into the sacristy, can be cruel.
I suppose we all feel like that from time to time. Those moments when we realize our physical prime is behind us. Often it feels wasted, or at least misdirected, and we are left wondering about the what-might-have-beens, occasionally wondering what is left?
I think such things hit us in our middle years because we see in our children the strengths and certainties (only sometimes misplaced!) we once had, and we see in our parents the frailties we will become. We vow to change, to lose weight, to finish our degree, to find some further meaning in our lives, to create some good that will live after us.
Yet, we forget how to simply be. We want to do good, we want to create, to change. We aren't content with our place for it's not where we imagined we would be. I am reminded of a favorite quote, from a memoir entitled Red Hills and Cotton, which runs, "How often do we picture the way ahead and dream of it and plan? But the actual road is never the dreamed one, and the sights that we start out to see are not the scenes that we remember."
Yet, it's OUR road. The things we've done have made us who we are, and the sights that impressed us will linger long after our initial frail ambitions have faded from memory. My grandmother had a chestnut tree. The priest who received me into the Church smiled at the sound of bells, the same ones that tolled for him at his requiem. My husband loves the smell of old books. My dear friend (you know who you are) loves the smell of horses.
We are the creation of a God with an eye for details. It is in those small things, those fine nuances, that we find who we are. Ambitions can be swept aside by a strong love, be it for a spouse or a child. We will gladly digress from our path to help those who need us, and sometimes we never regain that original way, but it is not a failure to linger where we find joy, or where we find purpose, and if that purpose is not all we think it should be, it is no less important. We may not dream of an ordinary life, but we are not always aware of just how extraordinary the simple can be.
I saw the extraordinary potential in a young boy. I witnessed it in what the man he has become no doubt perceives as his ordinary duties in his daily life. Someday, he too, may question what more he should have done. I only hope I am there to tell him what an impact he has had on me.
