Extraordinarily Ordinary

After a wonderful dinner with a dear one, I looked back through my memories, those I haven't examined for a while.  So many extraordinary moments filled with extraordinary people...I wondered where they are and where all the time has gone?

Through the filter of an ordinary life, I get up and do all the regular things that make up a life and the days pass without my permission and sometimes without my awareness and I wonder...how could I ever think myself ordinary?  My days have been filled with people whom I love and people who have loved me, sometimes-the best times- they are both.

Could it be that I expect everyday to be that amazing day...that day that I can remember with such clarity?  What you were wearing, and how we laughed until tears slipped from our eyes.  The dog that made me think that I was an amazing dog trainer.  The children that looked at me with such love and affection that I thought my heart would melt.  Treasured memories of rooms filled with love and expectation.

These were ordinary moments in my life, ones that I took for granted because they occurred with such frequency and regularity that I failed to keep an accurate record of the wheres and the whens.  Now I have memories in isolation, moments that float free in passing through my mind.

Once I was a young woman, and I danced through my nights and worked through my days, or loved through my days and worked through my nights or worked, danced, loved, worked, danced, swam and loved and the years slipped away.

I was always so busy.  So aware that I didn't want to miss anything, and I didn't pass up on the opportunity to live my life to the fullest.  A friend once told me that I did more in day than most people did in a week and I was flattered- though I knew that it was true.

Children comforted on my shoulder, that made my arms ache and finally fall asleep are now adults, and other children take their position.  How many children have I held in this way?  I cannot remember all of their names and that shames me.

I see now that my life has not been ordinary, no matter what I thought at the time.  It is extraordinary that one person could experience so much love from so many sources.  I want to tell them how important they are to me, how much they changed my life, how much I wish to know them now.  Perhaps I just did?