We went for an overnight to Vel’s beach home down at Englewood and (as always) had a fabulous time.
The weather obliged (as it almost always does in Florida) and the surreal surroundings provided a well-needed respite from the hectic work week we had both just escaped from.
We watched the birds in the trees around the house sing their melody to the evening winds while we sank a few Coronas in the company of one of my very best friends.
The conversation was only silenced when we broke away and went looking for shark’s teeth on the beach and then continued into the final golden rays of the evening as the sun sank below its watery horizon.
It was indeed a gilt-edged visit that will rest in our memory bank for quite a while. We found out that birds (or at least lady cardinals) peel the nuts before eating them. Inna found lots of fossilized shark’s teeth and I found that silhouetted selfies can help hide the years for an old fart like me.
I have included a number of shots at the end of the blog and I hope you find something to enjoy, I edited in a close up of Inna with a shark’s tooth, in case you are unsure what they look like.
But it was really the journey home where the thought for this blog arose.
You see, so much of our life is spent doing things that we oftentimes forget to make memories. We certainly did, in this visit. But much of our normal days these past few months has become a blur of progress and achievement.
We have knocked so many things off our must-do list but very little in our want-to-do list. Such is life in a high pressure existence. We can become very efficient at dealing with all the complexities of modern day living and, excluding disasters, seem to be to get to the bottom of whatever needs to be done in order to continue with forward progress.
But it is a rare person that lies on his/her deathbed and reflects on how competent they were in dealing with the challenges that they faced throughout life. More likely than not our thoughts become consumed with things we haven’t yet done, love we haven’t yet shared, and worries of those that we leave behind.
No matter how prepared we are for that final breath, there will be some of those thoughts that we leave behind in that final exhale. But, it is really important that our want-to-do list is given real life during our lives and we don’t end up short-changing ourselves because we were too busy or focused on the afterlife.
I am not going to rail against religions and their role in the latter, but really what I am trying to say is that with the former, being too busy is a fools errand.
Sometimes we consume ourselves with the thoughts that certain things have to be done today. Or that we are the only ones that can do them. We pad our thoughts with ample reasons as to why we need to be so busy in dealing with life’s urgencies.
And I am not saying that these reasons are invalid.
I am only saying that most things will get done somehow, by someone, at some time. We are not indispensable to life’s process, though we might like to think that we are.
But one thing is for certain. If we devote no time to our want-to-do list, then we will never do what we want.
Making time to smile with your loved ones, create some memories, and experience the true joy of being alive, will help add real meaning into our existence and help avoid merely becoming a blackened fossil washed up on a distant shore.
… just a thought!
