She Lived

I spent alot of time today debating what I would write about. Well, maybe not THAT much time... some time. In spurts, in between thoughts of vacations, my future business, my exercise routine and dinner tonight. Oh, right... and work... yeah... thoughts of work too.

I thought about the movie I watched (and love) last night. Secondhand Lions. It was my brand-new-to-me copy from Amazon. I adore getting DVDs used from Amazon. It's the same thing you'd buy in a store but some of the movies are no more than twenty cents plus shipping. Sure, someone else previewed them - who cares? Millions of other people have seen most of them - it's not going to change a damn thing about how you view whatever the film in question may be.

At the end of the flick someone says "They lived." During the movie it really means something, when I looked it up to quote it today on IMDB, I realized that the words "they lived" really made for not the best starting a blog entry quote ever. Still... there's something in the sentiment I am trying to capture. Something in the film feels eerily similar to the feeling I get when I continue reading "Eat, Pray, Love" or when I think about (and in many ways fantasize) about what's up around the bend for me.

Trying to describe this almost "eerie" feeling is a bit more complicated than I would have thought. Really, it's just a question I keep posing to myself. What do I want from life? What is my time, money and effort best handed over to? When my time comes... I want whomever is left to be able to say "she lived" and really mean it. I am well along the road of being able to say that. I have explored all sorts of different avenues already in my 31 years but nothing really, in the grand scheme. I do find the idea (now that I already did for a good chunk of time) of completely settling down as not only frightening but simply not for me. I am not sure that I will ever want to settle down to watch sitcoms or cop dramas on my end of the couch each night. Maybe my mind will change but maybe it's just not my fate. For some people, I imagine, this is ideal - and that's OK. I am, by no means, putting down other people's choices... just thinking about my own at the moment.

So... let's raise a glass (or a water bottle because that's all that is available to me at the moment) and toast to the past 30 years as well as the next 10, 20, 30, 40 or more years and the fact that I, honestly, have no clear cut answer as to what I will be doing when each of those milestones hit. I know where I'd like to be but we'll see how close it actually gets to what I'm imagining in my mind.