In the Future

It is the year 2049 and I am 56 years old. It has been a long fifty-six years and I have been through many things. All in all, I don't know how much I've actually amounted to. I've never been a CEO, I never became president of the United States like I once wanted to at age five, I never became a rock star like I wanted to at age ten, but I've done a lot. I'm a mother, which some say is the most rewarding thing in life, but eventually that ends. My kids are grown up and they don't need dear old mom around anymore. It seems sad but I am okay with it. After twenty some-odd years, it's time that they were on their own and I'm confident that I've raised them well enough for them to be okay on their own.

Life is it's own reward. The sense of accomplishment when you've persevered through a challenge, the amazing feeling that you get when you watch a sunset on a Hawaiian beach, the tingles you get in your stomach when you've laughed too hard with old friends, the sense of pride you are filled with upon your daughter's first steps, the butterflies you get on your child's first day of college, the day you leave them behind. It's these things that I consider best in my life: the challenges and the rewards.

I have laughed so hard with my friends that my stomach hurt for hours. I have woken up before to dawn just to watch the sun rise. I have sat lazily in a field, doing absolutely nothing but watching the clouds pass by. I have heard my children's first laughs, first words and seen their first steps. I have had the jitters on the night before my wedding. I have done all of these things, and so I consider my life lived to the fullest, though of course it's not nearly over yet. Some of these I may never experience again, but I know that there are new experiences waiting just around the corner.