Pathways

St. Louis Botanical Gardens

I recently read through my entire blog, each post for the past year of my blogging life. I was left with the feeling that I was dissatisfied, searching, and trying to talk myself into being happy. Several kind friends have noticed the same thing. I am at an age (45) when I am still young enough to have a different life. I can't go back and change the past, but I can still create a different future by choosing differently now. That's a very seductive thought. Am I happy? Is my life now what I thought it would be? Is my future something to look forward to, or to dread? Did I marry the right man, have the right number of children, live in a part of the world I could be happy in? Is there one right answer?

Except for the six years I spent in Germany and a few others here and there, I basically grew up in St. Louis. It has such a unique quality about it that is hard for me to describe. My family has lived in Missouri since 1811, and I think that over the years our genetic makeup changed to make us dependent on the air and water of that place to feel complete. Even here, on a winter night in Utah, I can smell the summer night of home, the steaminess of it. A halo of humidity settling around the streetlights at night, crickets chirping, fireflies flickering, cut grass begging me to lie down and enjoy the brief coolness. Riding bikes down the golf course paths through sprinklers, running around the backyard collecting jars full of fireflies, a stolen kiss on the porch at midnight when I was older. Walking on the slope of the levee along the Mississippi with the men in their seersucker and the women in their cotton skirts headed to dinner on a riverboat. The smell of a baseball game, the community of strangers standing in line at Ted Drewes, a night at the Muny watching Broadway musicals. I always wanted my children to experience what I was fortunate enough to have. But while a few days here and there every couple of years have only given them the briefest taste of my home, it's enough to make me continually ache for more.

And yet, in the absence, we have a home here, as well. Dinner on the deck at twilight under twinkling lights and candles, the welcome chill that comes during a summer night, picking currants in the afternoon shade, the smell of wet earth from our garden, the sound of happy children in the street. The first glimpse of color on the mountain signalling that fall is on its way, the brilliant whiteness of snow on Timp, and the unearthly blue of a Utah sky. This place has become a huge part of me--I've lived here so much longer than I ever lived in Missouri. I know every street by heart, and love so many people who have cared for me and my family over the years. I honestly can't say that, given the choice, I would immediately choose to leave here. I would be torn.

I don't think that, for me, there are right and wrong answers about where I live or who I spend my life with. I made choices many years ago that led to this very moment in time. I have a husband who loves me, children that I wouldn't have missed out on for the world, and a life that has been more than fair and good to me. Maybe it's just my nature to constantly reevaluate my life and question my decisions. The first half of my life has been full of adventure, love, loss, surprise, joy, pain, regret, and contentment, which is as it should be.

So I take a deep breath and jump into the second half of my life, fully expecting and hoping for more of the same.