Starting a Bucket List
I have never really written a Bucket List, but I do have many items in my head that I’d like to do in my life. I started putting them down a couple weeks ago, and it was funny how the simple act of writing them down in my journal made them come alive in a way that simply holding them in my mind didn’t accomplish.
I also realized how many of my goals are simply related to traveling, in one way or another.
October 11, 2011 Leave a comment
Reliving vs. Changing
When I was younger I was bitter and unhappy with who I was, so I used to dream about going back and reliving certain moments in my life to change its course. To make me happier. To make everything better. To make everything perfect, I guess.
The fact is, our life isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure book. We aren’t allowed to make a decision, then go back and see what would have happened had we done things differently. Sure, at times it feels like it would be nice, but in all honesty, would we want to?
I can say I’d wish to go back and be more careful that one June day, when I got into an accident with my Mom’s car just after I got my license. I could wish to go back and choose to stay in college, or save more money, or something much more impactful, like going back to warn my Grandmother before she passed away. I could wish all of these things. But it makes no sense to wish for things you know you can’t change.
If I change one small thing, it would cause a ripple effect that would have an effect on how my life has played out. I may not have the strong relationships that I share with my wonderful sisters today as an adult. I may not have my great brothers in law, my awesome nephew, and my beautiful nieces. And I may not have, by chance, walked into a bar early one Friday evening in March 2010 and met my soul mate.
Any change I could go back and make could potentially erase all of those things from my life, and I can’t possibly imagine living without any of them. The decisions I’ve made are mine. The scars I have mold me into who I am. And they have all shaped my life into something that I can’t imagine changing.
So while I may not have a desire to change any aspect of my life, going back to relive a certain moment has a certain appeal to me. Not to change anything, but to just experience it again. To observe, possibly by reinhabiting my body.
Christmas was always a happy time in my childhood. I always loved visiting my Grandparents house on Christmas Eve, feeling the excitement of waiting for Santa, and giggling with my sisters Christmas morning, whispering between our bedroom doors to decide who was going to wake up Mom and Dad. Passing out presents, putting on our new clothes, then off to my Aunt and Uncle’s house for dinner with the rest of the extended family, sharing the tales of our Christmas hauls with our cousins.
It was a wonderful and magic time, for me, and I’d love to go back and visit it just one more time.
I’d love to remember what it was like to feel the innocence of childhood. To revisit those who have gone, and walk away with a fresh memory that would only be moments old, instead of the fading 40 year old memory I now have. To hear their voices again, and see them smile at me. To taste Gram’s cooking, and Auntie’s baking, and Grandpa’s bread. To feel the joy we all felt when the family was together, sharing old stories, and making new ones.
The older I get, the more I miss those times, and I’m sure that is true for just about everyone. The further away from a memory, the harder it is to recall. Such is the curse of growing older.
All we can do to help preserve it, is pass along the memories we have to the children in our lives, so that we’re being present and living in what will become the memories they long to remember, because the children in our lives is the closest we come to having a time machine.
October 10, 2011 Leave a comment
Five reasons I’m weird…and I’m OK with that.
1. I always eat my french fries first. They’re the best part of the meal!
2. I dip my french fries in my chocolate shake. Trust me on this one. Salty and Sweet! It’s awesome. The fries and Frosty from Wendy’s are best.
3. Sometimes I talk and make “Snyder noises” while I’m sleeping. “Snyder noises” are just little random whimpers & noises. The origin of the name will remain a secret. Those who know me and my family know what it means.
4. I might have a mild obsession with Star Wars. Maybe. But it’s not unhealthy. Right?
5. I can’t sleep with my back facing an open doorway. Do I really need to explain this one?
October 6, 2011 Leave a comment
(super) Heroes
Growing up, I was never really a comic book fan. I didn’t have anything against them, and it’s not that I didn’t read them here and there, but my childhood was ruled by my Star Wars toys, and superheroes just didn’t come close to matching the magic I felt when I created scenarios with my action figures and plastic spaceships. It wasn’t until much later in life that I came to appreciate comics; eight months ago, to be precise, when my partner brought me to a comic book shop two days after Valentine’s Day. He wanted to introduce me to one of his interests, and he was looking to get back into collecting comics after not having done it for many years.
Walking through the aisles looking at all the titles, and browsing through several different ones, I started to gain an appreciation for them that I didn’t have before. They were interesting stories with complex characters, and the artwork pulled me in. I was intrigued how they were able to tell such elaborate stories with great heart and emotion with wonderful imagery and minimal dialogue, and created different feelings, like tension, excitement, and so on, simply by how the different panels fit together on a page. It was a lot like filmmaking, using creative edits and framing techniques to subliminally stimulate emotions you want the reader to feel. Having been interested in the art of filmmaking for many years, this is what appealed to me, initially.
I stopped near the section of Captain America comics, and I started browsing. I think it was just by chance that I was standing in front of them, I’m not sure, but I ended up grabbing a paperback collection of the newest Captain America series and flipping through it. I was immediately pulled in to the story, and decided to take it home.
I loved that Cap (Steve Rogers) was a man who was misplaced in time, having lived his early life in the 1940′s, and then frozen in ice for 60 years to awaken in a world he never could have imagined. I’ve always loved the seemingly simple time of the 1940′s. Movies like A Christmas Story and The Rocketeer I enjoy, not just for their stories, but for the time period they are set in. It has always been a magical time to visit, for me, and I was immediately drawn in to it with the Cap comic I picked up.
Then the character grew on me. He was a puny, sickly kid, bullied and orphaned at a young age, who wanted to join the Army to make a difference, but was continually told he couldn’t due to his size and medical history. He never gave up trying, and I loved that determination and spirit he represented. He was a good man; one of honor and respect. He loved his mother and wanted to do right by her memory, and he never backed down from a fight, not matter how badly he was getting his butt kicked.
Then one man, Dr. Erskine, recognized that this boy had heart, and recommended he become part of a secret military experiment called Operation: Rebirth, which sought to develop a means of creating physically superior soldiers. Kind of like steroids on steroids, on steroids.
Steve Rogers was given the injection, and immediately began increasing in size and muscle mass. He grew into the perfect human; healthy and strong. He was no longer that small, weak, sickly boy who had been picked on. But one thing that didn’t change was his heart. He remained the same decent man he was on the inside. That was, and still is, the appeal of his character to me, and they focused on that in the incredibly entertaining Captain America movie that was released over the summer.
Something we all need to be reminded of sometimes.
October 5, 2011 Leave a comment