Afraid to Miss Out

Sometimes I see life as it seems to pass me by.  I have so many interests that there is no way on earth I could dedicate as much time as I wished to every single one of them.  I love languages, seriously; if I had the time, I'd dedicate 4 hours a day to learning them.  I love singing to music and imagine myself singing in front of thousands of people.  I was a drama major in college, so naturally it would be a dream come true to be a lead in a Broadway musical.  I love drawing and painting, though, admittedly, I'm not very talented in either of those two.  I simply cannot go more than two days without writing something, a blog, a song, a poem, anything.  But I know there is no way I can become a master in all of these areas.

My oldest daughter, Nyssa, is 6 years old.  She is smart as a whip and wants to be in on absolutely everything.  She loves ballet and gymnastics, she's an avid reader, and she enjoys writing scripts and performing plays for the family.  Sometimes she even talks the boys into becoming part of her talent show.  She is the most precocious, curious child I know.

Most things seem to come to her easily, and, if it doesn't, she attempts to forgo that activity.  Of all things she does on a regular basis, though, sleep is the most difficult.  She can't turn off her brain at night.  Those are her words I'm using here.  She's tried the whole routine aspect and we still have one for her.  But often times, she just can't stop. 

Last night was such a night.  She actually went to sleep around 8 o'clock, which is a miraculous feat for her.  But she had to wake up at 11 to go to the bathroom.  That did it.  She was awake, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  I tried rubbing her back.  I tried reading to her, I tried leaving her alone in her room while she attempted to read herself to sleep.  It was all to no avail.  She crawled in bed with us and was too mobile to stay.  So she played quietly in her room, or so I thought. 

Benjamin awoke around midnight, wet, so I had to help change him and get him back to sleep.  I crawled into bed only to have Nathaniel wake up with a bad dream.  So I held him for quite some time before he fell asleep.  By then it was 2am and I was completely wiped.  But before my feet were even in the bed, Gabriela let out a loud howl.  I tried to let her go back to sleep, but 15 minutes later she was still going strong.  So I went to check on her.

When I did so, I discovered the little tent in the girls' room, but it's constructor, Nyssa, was nowhere to be found.  I brought the baby with me downstairs to see the family room light on, a computer game going, and my sleepless child hiding behind the recliner.  After putting Gabriela back to bed, I tried all the things you do to get Nyssa to sleep with no results.  She was still awake at 8:00 when we got everyone up for the day.  Her mind was going so strongly that in spite of the melatonin and the chamomile tea, she couldn't shut down, because she didn't want to miss anything, even though the world around her lay sleeping.

I can relate to that.  I go to bed at night and my brain just goes into overdrive.  All the days' events flood my mind, all the things I wanted to accomplish, all the things I would like to accomplish with my life.  And I watch all my hopes and dreams being constructed and apparently knocked down before my eyes.  And I don't want to miss any of it.  But by worrying about it, I'm not able to enjoy what I have. 

I could dream away every day wondering what could have been.  What could have happened if I had chosen to go to Hollywood or New York the first time I came to Georgia?  Would I be on Broadway or a movie star by now?  Or what if I had finished writing that book I started a couple years ago?  Would I be a published author?  Or what if I had recorded those songs in a studio, would my voice be good enough to get me a record deal?  If I had enough hours in the day, could I learn to speak a different language for every day of the month?

But that would be such a waste of my time, because I'm not there.  I'm not in the parallel world of "What if," I am here, at home, beside my computer.  My children are all (YES!!!) nestled quietly in their beds, and the love of my life is in the next room.  I made choices, and those choices led me here, by some amazing twist!  Life didn't pass me by...I walked this path.  I love this path!  I wouldn't change my family for anything in the world, and that would mean that I wouldn't change any of those decisions that brought me here now.

I'm journeying in this life.  I'm walking the path.  Sometimes it leads me around a bend where I see something familiar, like singing with my choir buddies.  Sometimes it leads me to a new beginning, like this blog I'm writing.  And sometimes it leads me beside the still waters where I can drink, where I can look and see the tree that is planted firmly in the ground, unshakable in spite of what storms it may weather, where I can lay myself down and sleep in peace.