Are you Living?

Are You Living?

Like really living?!

Recently my son in-law posted a video on his instagram of him on his lawnmower tractor, a rope attached with the old sledding saucer attached to that, and there on the saucer was my daughter smiling the widest smile that even at dusk of an already gray day you could see the glow of her teeth.

These two are adults, they are ages 25 and 26 years. They live in a neighborhood, not a subdivision necessarily, but a small little, "no outlet" neighborhood. After viewing this short little clip, we laughed and talked about what their neighbors might have been thinking as these two were out playing in the snow. (*You can take the girl out of the country, but ya can't take the country out of the girl)

As the Parent of these two adult children, I have to say this short video got me thinking. 

We all know when I start thinking, you never know where we might end up.

This time it wandered to "when does it end?" Not our life, but our LIVING!! 

At what point did we think we could no longer enjoy being crazy! At what point did we stop thinking it was ok to do a lot of things. 

I read once in a blog from a person I don't know, that we fail to notice when it is the last.

 Her blog stated things like, "I didn't realize it was the last time she would want me to comb her hair", "I didn't realize it was the last time he would want to play catch with me."

Time moves and last times are happening every single day without us even noticing it.

So this prompted the discussion I had with my husband this morning.

 I asked him, "what did you enjoy as a kid?" "Like other than following your Dad every where and farming, what did you enjoy, what were your hobbies?" My Husband is the king at avoiding questions that he knows is headed to a deeper conversation. He prefers sarcasm and fun over serious conversation. So our deep conversations only happen here and there, most of our conversations are light and filled with laughter and sarcasm.

So after pausing to no response, I went on to say a few things I enjoyed in my younger years.

 For  me I used to love ice skating. Matter of fact one day, when we were dating, he knew I loved skating so when he picked me up, he told me to bring my ice skates. When we got here to the farm, he took me out back on the ditch and as he slid around on his boots, I skated. (*one of my favorite memories of us back then) 

But one day I must have taken my skates off and without realizing it, it was the last time I skated.

 I still have the skates, we still have the ditch out back that is frozen, heck this week Michigan winter has finally returned and our entire driveway was a sheet of ice, why didn't I go get my skates down and put them on and go skate?

 One might say, well probably because the ditch has a foot of snow on it and the drive way is bumpy ice. But guess what, I grew up poor, we didn't go to the fancy ice rink or the park that has public skating. Do you know where I skated? I skated in an unfortunate farmers flooded field because he didn't have the money to tile it. You know what else, that field had layers upon layers of snow on the ice, I just went out with my skates on and skated along pushing the shovel until the snow cleared and I had a nice section to skate on. You know what else, the ice often was a bit bumpy, on rare occasions it would be smooth as glass, but most often it had chunks of ground peaking up in spots that if I wasn't watching, I would hit and go flying, falling onto the snow covered ground and over time becoming too wet to be warm. I would go inside, hang my wet clothes in our basement by the little heater to dry, grab a hot cocoa, warm up and after a couple hours, I was back out skating some more. Sometimes it would have snowed again and I would have to clear the ice with the shovel all over, but I was living life. 

Why do we stop doing these things? Think of olympic skaters, they don't hang up their skates at 15, they skate as long as they can. Competitive skating might end for them to make room for up and coming olympians, but I bet they still skate.  

When I explained this to my husband, he said "you can't do that because if you fall you could break a hip, we are too old!" But who says?! As a child, my sister was skating and fell and hit her head. She ended up in the ER when she suddenly began throwing up. She was found to have a concussion. It didn't stop her from ever skating again. Injury can happen at any age.

As Jim and I are in our late fifties now, I often think about our daily lives. Today I wonder if we are living or just sitting here waiting to die. Sounds dramatic, but it is true.

God gives us these days, we know they are numbered, was it his plan for us to hit fifty and say,

 "oh time to sit and wait to die!"

I don't think a loving Father would ever wish for his children to stop living life. 

As we age, we do have more responsibilities, but in our early years of marriage and having children,

we still lived.

 When our kids were younger, we were still living life. Matter of fact we lived life to the point that here is a funny story from back then.

Jim and I had taken the kids to Houghton Lake, a place he went as a child and where we had ran off to when we eloped. We were in the lake, the kids were on rafts. We were in the boat that came with the cabin rental. So we decided as adults, parents no less, to start circling our children with the boat. The kids were giggling and screaming as the waves tossed them all over. Suddenly the DNR show up in their boat. We stop as they approach us, earlier they had came up to us asking if we had seen some children that were missing, so we figured they were just stopping in to tell us the children had been found. But nope, the first guy looked at us and said, "are these your kids?" We smile and laugh and say, "Oh yes, these are our two." We thought he just wanted to make sure that some children weren't being bullied on the water......but nope, because the two guys look at each other and back at us,  (we are just grinning like idiots, because we were having so much fun) and the one guy, his look was one of serious confusion as he tilts his head and says,"Uhm your children do not even have life jackets on!"

Oops! Parent fail! We were having so much fun we failed to even notice the safety issue we over looked. Those DNR agents probably thought we were the dumbest people ever.  We did feel a bit ignorant having to be told this, but we laughed about it. Our kids laugh at that story all the time. Safety is important, but we were living life.

Now I am not saying that we should live life irresponsibly just because we are having fun. 

I am saying that we worry so much, as we grow up, we stop enjoying life.

That day on the lake we should have made sure they had their life jackets on, went further out, and did exactly as we were doing, but cautiously, we still would have been Living Life to the fullest. 

As we get older,  we put life jackets on even when we are in shallow water, we fear going too far out, we stay close to shore. We do need to remain cautious and careful, but we don't need to stop Living! Now is our time, our children made it out of our homes alive, while we were teaching them to enjoy life....now it is time for us to get back to Living and Enjoying life for just us. 

I love to dance, if I am invited to a wedding, you can bet once I hit the floor I am only coming off of it to refill a cup and go potty.  My husband knows this about me, I have been like this since we met and used to go to the night clubs. Our children know this as well.

Have you ever seen on social media the memes laughing at the old Lady out dancing crazy at what looks to be a reception to "Drop it like it's Hot"? Yeh, that is me!

 I often wonder, am I too old to be out here dancing? Are people laughing at me? Do I look ridiculous? But I haven't let those thoughts stop me yet, because when I am at a wedding reception, I forget all my worries and I just live in the moment.

Why do we let the next generations make us feel like we should stop living life? I mean if we are being honest here, the thoughts and worries above that I have are usually because of the social media post where younger people share and comment laughing at the old lady "busting a move". 

I am blessed that my kids know I love to dance and so they just smile from the tables, sitting with their Dad.  Yeh, they didn't get my love of dancing. Our son, with a little liquid courage, you might get him on the dance floor.  Our daughter, a bit harder to convince, she is only on the dance floor if her husband is holding her in his arms as they sway side to side.  But away from a dance floor, she isn't afraid to live this life God gave her. Those two are the craziest, most adventurous people we know. They are Living Life to the Fullest and Thank God daily for every breath they get. I admire that about them.

That crazy couple called today, said they were coming over to the farm for a visit. They asked if it would be ok if they brought the saucer sled to attach to our old Blaster (4 wheeler) and have some fun in the yard and across the fields. Jim said, "yes that would be fine". 

And guess what else I heard him say....."I was thinking about doing the same thing, but I don't know if my back can handle it!!"

Yeh, we are going to go start living, and I think it begins today! 

We can be cautious, but aches and pains aren't going to stop us anymore! 

Let's get to LIVING!!

End note: If we are limping in church tomorrow, don't laugh or look at us funny, we were out living life. We put age and fear aside, we might be sore, but we are going to take each day God has given us and live it!  I hope you will do the same!

Be Blessed,

The Happy Farmwife