Just My Luck...

I've spent the past couple of weeks embarking on a new project.

I've been working on my old photos. Corralling the ones that have been scattered around in boxes and miscellaneous albums into one location. I've got so many old photos...photos that I really don't remember exactly when they were taken and some of the names of the people in them are kinda fuzzy.

The photos were in various locations throughout the house...in photo boxes in my craft area, in boxes in the guest room, tucked away in other albums. Now they're all in a series of albums ~ rescued from their dark box, scattered envelopes and non archival-friendly album storage.

In addition to undertaking this task, I cracked open the three albums that contain photos of me in my youth. Baby photos all the way through my adolescence. Many of these photos are polariods and have faded through the years. Since I was reorganizing the other photos anyways, I figured that I might as well start the task that I had intended for these photos all along...I scanned them into my computer, one by one. I now have digital records of the photos...preserving them in a format that should endure through the years. Eventually, I hope to purchase a quality photo program that will allow me to restore these faded photos to their former glory.

When I was working with the photos and sliding them into their new homes, I was taken back. Many of these pictures seem like they were taken a lifetime ago. Indeed, as I stared at the cherub-faced Me in the older photos, it seems so long ago! Even as I looked at the "older" Me, the one that appears in my teen-years photos, it is like I wsa sucked through a time-warp and plunked down in the past.

It got me to thinking. Look at Me back then...and look at Me now. We're two very different people. Yet I recognize that the Me of the past directly influenced the Me of the present.

Past Me had no idea what awaited in the future. Yet it is her actions that brought Present Me to the place that I am today. And it's crazy...simple actions had such an impact!

I bonded with my childhood best friend in elementary school. That bond brought me into the Masonic family in the very early 1990s. That formed for me strong bonds of sisterhood among other members of my Rainbow Assembly. Strong bonds with certain sisters brought me into the world of DeMolay, where I was privledged to serve as Chapter Sweetheart of my local chapter. Because of my bonds with these sisters, my interest in DeMolay continued past my year as Chapter Sweetheart, and I became involved with DeMolay, and later Knighthood, on a state level.

The friendships formed during this time remain with me today. And a friendship formed during my state travels lead me to meet the man that I would later marry. And my bond with my husband has taken me around the world, and settled me in a place that is about as far away from home as I can get and still be in the country.

Amazing.

And the little girl in the pictures never had a clue. Yet the actions she would take started the chain reaction.

It is because of her that I am the person that I am today. Because of her, I have seen and experienced a life that others can only dream about. I have changed over the years...leaving the little girl in the photos behind. Through an awkward adolescense, the teen years and young adulthood, those various incarnations of Me have continued to evolve into the person that I am today.

I am strong. I am confident. I have a very strong moral base...instilled in me by my family and strongly reinforced by my years in the Masonic Lodge. I am proud of the life that I have led. When faced with challenges, I met them head on and chose an action and a path that I can be proud of. And I continue to do that today.

I have had experiences that continue to amaze me. I have always been a very lucky, and my lifetime of experiences reinforces that. I am lucky to be where I am today, to have been where I've been in the past, and to love and be loved by the people in my life.

Yes...I am lucky. The hand that I have been dealt has been a good one. Perhaps there have been some things in my life that might have played out differently if I had chosen another course of action than the one that I took. But would I be where I am today if something had changed? I don't think so. I look back and see the small actions that brought me to where I am now, and am grateful that everything happened the way that it did. I am happy in my present. I look forward to my future with open eyes and a steady hand.