Pondering

I was chatting with a friend today.  I hadn’t really thought about it but as it turns out she is an “old” friend.  Time wise, not age wise.  I’ve known her for nearly twenty years.  I remember her son as a cute kid from back before he learned to drive.  He’s a grown man now, with a family of his own and has been for literally years and years and years.  (I wonder if he’d let me borrow his daughter since my little girls are all grown up now?)  Any way, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since she wandered into work as a temp, intending to stay a short time and ended up staying for what seemed like forever at the time.  Thanks to her, I have some very good memories of that job.

And then this evening I got back in touch with someone I knew in my teens.  I puppy sat for her back before I could drive.  Back before I was petrified of dogs though her collie was such a sweetie I doubt I’d be afraid of him even now.  Back before Reading became a place that was too unsafe to even consider leaving a country girl and a foreign friend the same age on their own.  Her house then is two blocks from where I live now.  The same block I mentioned a few weeks ago where the guy was shot to death.  Funny, how things change.  But then I realized it’s been 35 years since I house sat for her.  And 35 years since an adult took interest and gave me the courage to be myself which, as a teenager who didn’t really fit in, is saying a lot.

I haven’t really spoken with the second friend mentioned in the entire time I knew the first.  No reason and no real point to it.  I’m not old.  Or I don’t really consider myself to be.  But perhaps I am..  What is old?  Oh I know.  It’s all relative.  And attitude.  Yes, I’m rambling but as the title of this implies, I’ve been pondering today.  Some days it seems time is flying by so fast that it’s overwhelming.  Does it speed up as you age because you know more and start to understand there are things you want to do that you’ll never get to so at some point you have to choose between them?  Do you regret what you know you’ll miss out on or celebrate what you don’t?  Or both?

Life is too short, no matter how long you live.  Cherish the important people in it.  Always.  Say thank you to those who influence you, in big ways and in small.  Laugh, cry and everything in between.  As I said, I’m pondering…