Pat Bean's blog

            “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

My life has had moments like this — and they’re still vivid in my memories.

We All Need Some Sparkle in our Lives

From my daughter’s backyard patio on the western outskirts of Tucson, I had a front row seat to a fireworks show Monday night. Rockets burst in the air, sending showers of sparkling stars and streaks high and wide – over and over. It was the longest firework show I’ve ever seen.

Finally, however, I tired of the extravaganza, realizing that one can only endure so much splendidness.

White-water rafting was my fireworks for almost 20 years.

Afterwards, as I was feeding carrots to my daughter’s horse, Hondo, who hadn’t liked the explosive lighting show at all, I thought about the fireworks in my life – from late-blooming delicious relationships to facing down  giant rapids from the front seat of a paddle boat on the Colorado River.

My life started out complicated and difficult, then exploded with adventures, and is now moving in slow motion.  I’ve lived a full circle. And what I find strange is that the ending is every bit as fulfilling as the middle.

But it was the beginning, when I was a child of an alcoholic, the outcast in school, too young married to the wrong man, and an unprepared mother, that formed me into the person I am today. My children and grandchildren are the bonuses from that time, as is this person I have become.

I can’t regret any of my life.

While it’s the fireworks’ years that dominate my memories, it’s these years toward the end that are giving me my greatest contentment. Of course, I can’t help but hope there are a few fireworks’ memories still out there for me to create.

But no way do I want to go back to the beginning stage. Once was enough for that period in my life.

Bean Pat: Hairy Puccoon http://tinyurl.com/gtoxu2e Portraits of Wildflowers, one of my favorite bloggers.