Our Walk

Today the girls and I went for a long walk. We walked through the park at the end of the street and cut through it to a neighborhood on the other side. I used to cut through the park to this neighborhood all the time when I was a kid. With my bike rolling along at my side, I would walk past the overgrown bushes and squeeze through an opening to get to my friends' houses. Two of my best friends grew up in this neighborhood on the other side of the park and this is where I spent a lot of my time as a kid having fun, getting into a little trouble and learning. The park was the center of our universe when we were growing up. We would decide to meet at the park and spend our time there having endless conversations about what was going on in our world and discussing things that we thought meant everything, but now I would give anything to have problems like those again.

With Peanut and Jelly Bean sitting in tow, we walked by my friends' parents' old houses. Everyone has moved away now. New people inhabit these dwelling places that marked part of my childhood. New children played in the yards and different people were coming and going.

It made me think of the childhood version of me. Can I remember what I was like? I remember being pretty content with my life for the most part, somewhat self conscious and very naive to what this world was all about. But I was a dreamer. A BIG dreamer. I wanted to be anything and everything that this world had to offer. And I truly believed that I could be any of those things. I dreamt of being a writer, a college professor, a journalist, a dancer, a singer, a politician, a lawyer....I could go on. And I really believed that there was nothing stopping me from pursuing these things...when I was a kid.

The reality of my circumstances came crashing back to me when I saw my hands connected to the handlebars of a stroller. I was not any of those things that I thought I would become. Sure, for seven years of my life I was in marketing, but now I have given that up to be ...a mom.

A mom did not sound nearly as cool as any of the jobs that I had dreamt of being as a child. I mean, I guess I assumed back then that I would be a mom, but that was kind of a sidebar in my mind. Many people are moms, so there is not anything special about it...

But then I looked again at my hands holding on to that stroller and went past them to see the two little girls seated inside. It wasn't the title of being a mom that made me special now. It was the title of being Peanut and Jelly Bean's mom. It's not about the name that we are given, but about the responsibility that comes with it. I was commissioned by God to be the mother of twin baby girls named Peanut and Jelly Bean. They are special and unique and designed perfectly by Him. And He gave them to me. So, my job may not be what my child version dreamt of, but God knew there was something better waiting for me when I grew up.