This is a little late for a 9/11 post but, really, it isn't about 9/11.
A few weeks ago my housemate and I were checking out after grocery shopping. We were laughing a little because we both know my least favorite part of the grocery experience is at the end; the magazines. I really enjoy grocery shopping but I hate getting into the line-o-mags. I hate anything that's set up for impulse shopping but mostly every moral fiber in my being is animatedly opposed to everything those magazines stand for (my pontificating stops here).
Being the complete opposite of me that my darling housemate is, (you should live with us, it get'\s pretty interesting) she starts looking through them all. I normally ignore her while she's doing this and trying to talk to me about things she's reading but this time she was showing me a picture of an article done on 9/11. It was a piece on the children who were not born yet. Their mothers were pregnant when their dads passed away on 9/11 either serving as emergency relief or workers inside the buildings. I really thought it was an interesting perspective; a snap shot of 10 years later. Here were faces of these kids; fully cognitive beings with favorite colors, first days of school and first teeth already behind them. Last I left off with them, they were babies. But their life continued and those 10 years were full of lots of experiences and moments leading up to this picture of them I was now seeing.
And it got me thinking...lots of things hold more power when they are snap shots of one season or time to another. Anything given a substantial amount of time in between really changes and adapts.
It's like loosing weight or getting older. We don't notice the few pounds or wrinkles on ourselves or the people close to us because we are an intricate part of their daily ebb and flow. Now, take the same changes on a person you haven't seen since high school and you notice the 7 pounds, the new way they part their hair, or the quirky habit they picked up along the way.
And I've spent enough time with the Lord now to know that He uses stuff like this to start getting my brain in a particular frame of mind so He can keep working out some other things He has to say...and He did.
It started with the 9/11 magazine moment and continued.
I began thinking about where I was 10 years ago when that happened. I remember sitting in keyboarding (ha!) class. I started to remember how I looked at the world, what I thought was going to happen in life, who I was dating, what was important to me then, how my family dynamics were...and I could not help but be full of gratitude and awe and how much God had shifted and changed in just 10 years. There were so many little things no one will ever know about along with really big changes and shifts that had happened throughout those 10 years. Sitting in keyboarding class, I was so clueless. Sitting at my computer now, I'm just as clueless. It's true what they say, (who is the they we always are referring to anyway? Does anyone ever wonder that) "the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know".
I was in Wegmans again a few days later (I like it there, ok!?) with a friend and I bumped into someone I talked to a few times during the summer before that. Here I was again, staring a snapshot in the face. In their mind, I was the same person that previous summer. And to me, so were they. You start back up with the person you left off with, it's natural. Sometimes you have changed a lot and they haven't, sometimes you both are very different. But seldom do you find you can start right back off where you were. We weren't there for all the changing and growing and little moments in between in that year that separated us. But I was there for mine. I knew that that Megan was a lot different than the one standing in the cheese section. I hadn't realize all the changes that had happened or even how much progress and growth had occurred until I started talking to the snapshot friend.
It was powerful.
Fast forward two nights later and I'm cleaning out my basement. It was an all out purge session. And I came across pictures and objects galore. Old boyfriend bags (Ladies know what a boyfriend bag is. Those cheesy containers we used to keep all letters, pictures, and gifts in one relationship termination had completed), high school pictures, old family photos, (awkward age 10 stage included) vacation souvenirs, etc. I ended up spending two hours sorting through it all, throwing a lot away, staring at a lot, and realizing the distance that had been formed between those things and I.
This idea kept swirling around my brain long after.
I realized snapshots are pictures from a different time, people particular to a season, even the smell of a type of tea you used to drink during a really bad time in your life.
They all are occupants of a place we used to inhabit but have, without realizing just how far, moved out of.
Snapshots are sobering and powerful. They have the ability to remind you of how far you have come from a situation, person, time, or way of thinking. It can be negative; reminding you how far away you have slid from that person you wanted to be. It could also remind you of how faded a dream you once had has become.
But for me, this time, it's been good. I've been reminded to let myself see how much progress as been made. (I have a tendency to be incredibly ambitious and goal driven, so much so that I don't realize how far I have come from one thing before I move on to the next check-list item.)
So, rummage through your snapshots.
Pull out the tea you drank last year all the time.
Go back to the park you sat at every Friday.
Facebook stalk that friend who you spent a lot of time with two years ago.
Read the book you read during that really depressing February.
And...remember.
Because chances are, you've changed a lot.
Chances are, a lot of ground has been gained.
And it's probably the very thing you thought wouldn't change.
Deut 30:11, "This commandment that I'm commanding you today isn't too much for you, it's not out of your reach."
So, L'shanah tovah! (For a good year...)
xoxo,
mp
