Cruising the Time Line

Thanksgving has come and gone, and Christmas is rapidly approaching. My Christmas shopping is done and the gifts (for the most part) are all wrapped. This time of year brings a lot of mixed emotions for me. December 3rd was the 4th anniversary of my first wife's death. I do love DKW (who I married on 10/31 of this year) but I must confess that the loss of my first wife still hurts. DKW understands this and is very supportive - just one of the reasons I love her.

While, to some extent, I enjoy the holiday season - I'm actually looking forward to getting past it, so DKW and I can settle more firmly into our life together. 2009, has been a very eventful (major understatement!) year. I'm hoping 2010 will be more low key, even though DKW and I have some events planned together.

When I was in junior high school, I had a history teacher tell my class, "Think about what is important to you - in a hundred years - will it be important to anybody?" After posing that question he went on to ask the same about different year increments (i.e. 50, 20, 10 & 5), and that question has stayed with me. I guess it boils down to how long will I be remembered (by other than family) after I'm gone? Everyone wants to make their mark, but do we really? I was watching a program on the History Channel the other day, and they were saying that they can now date the universe's age at 4 1/2 billion years (give or take a million). The average human life expectancy is 77.7 years. So most people are barely a blip on the timeline radar. Even people remembered long after their deaths (say Confuscious (550 B.C.) for example) - could only be considered to be a speedbump on the timeline. Okay - enough of that - I don't want to be morbid. The point I really want to make is that we should enjoy the life we have. Its too short to sweat the small stuff. Be good to those that are important to you. Live your life doing the things that are important to you. I guess you could say that that is going to be my resolution for the coming year.

I do want to close this post on a positive note. I am happy. I have a wife and family that loves me. I refuse to dwell on the negative and look to the future with a positive outlook!

Everyone have a great day!!