I had a moment

Amidst a moment of immense sadness the last week or so, I had a moment of complete clarity. I had one of those "zone out" moments that you see on television or in a movie. You see something that stops you in your tracks and everything, suddenly, makes sense. You don't see or hear anything around you and all of a sudden, you know what it is you have to do.

No, I was not high and no, I was not drunk. I had a genuine "moment," and now it's hard to think of anything else. My moment was amongst a grieving family. My husband's family and now, MY family. A family with an amazing history, with a "name," and with roots.  A family that knows the meaning of the word and what it means to be connected.

I am someone who loves a history, a story. I think the past and people from it are so incredibly interesting. My time, our time, is boring. To look back on people who lived through things we could never imagine, who lived things we find vintage, collectible or rare is so incredibly fascinating. I love tradition. I love a home, a piece of furniture or a photo album that touched the past. I love holidays and the random moments that make up the memories that a family holds onto for a lifetime. Something that shows a moment in time when someone lived who is no longer here, an era that is now gone. I know, deep.

I come from a small family. Well, my mother's side is. My father's side is fairly large, but I rarely see them...long story. It is what it is. My family is loving absolutely, but sometimes my family is "all business." There is a lot of love between us, but sometimes it remains hidden like it's not "OK" to share. My family is weird like that and I can't explain it. I'm not upset, that's just how it is.

My in-laws, all of them, are completely the opposite.  I am absolutely like that. I believe that we should show and tell each other how we feel about each other always. Before it's too late. With my in-laws, family is such a huge deal, good or bad, for better or worse. Everybody hugs and everybody loves and spends hours just visiting and toasting and being together. I want that, forever and always for me and Travis. I want our children to have a history, to have a story and pieces of their family's past to hold onto. I am exactly in the right place :)

So what of my moment? While standing amongst my mother-in-law's family and enjoying the company and neighborhood, I had a vision of us, having a house in a neighborhood just like that. On a quiet cul-de-sac in a nice area, with a view and a sunset, among family from several generations...just seeing my own future played out exactly like that. To have our lineage hanging on the wall, a street named after us and children and grand-children running all over the place in the grass in the sunshine. It all just made sense. This is what life is about. That's all I want. A loving family, spending time together, in a nice home that we pass down through generations, with traditions and love.

It was all so incredibly simple and all incredibly beautiful. A theme that I took from the day, even in a time of such loss, is don't lose sight of the family legacy you have. Stay close to family and don't let it fall apart because that's so easy in this day and age. I want my children to look back and be fascinated with what our family history holds. I do what I can to share this with my family because I don't want us to miss out.  I felt like I missed out on so much of this when my grand-father passed away and all I wanted was to know more of the amazing life he lead...where he came from and what his youth was like. Where I come from.

My goal at this moment, even if it doesn't happen right this moment, is to recreate the family treasures that I so cherish. All I want or wish is to have a career I love, a home I love, I already have the man I love, and hopefully we can find ourselves nestled in a house with a history and a view where we can create our own cherished memories and our own family traditions. What a moment.