Sometimes I just pick a number and reflect. Today is it 23. 37 years ago I was 23 years old. I was single and had been in Alaska just a couple of months. As I settled in to work at my first permanent duty station with the Air Force I felt like I had arrived in a dream location. I can still picture myself working long hours on the flight line but also the glorious times of camping, fishing for salmon, hiking and just general good times in the most beautiful location I had ever been. Even though I grew up in the Sierra's of California the stunning beauty of Alaska remains my favorite place of all.
At 23 (when I look back at my diaries from that time) I imagined all of the locations I would travel to in my life. I had dreams of how far I would go in the military and all of the places I would live. To be 23 and carefree, yet committed to something I believed in and surrounded by good friends was sometimes so unbelievable I would write about wondering why I was so blessed. I kept in contact with friends from home that were finished with college and facing mountains of student loans. Others were getting married and some had even started their families. That seemed so far from my desires and goals that I really couldn't see myself in that life. Little did I know, at 23, that my life would be far different than what I was dreaming of.
Another thing that came to mind today - I have had 23 jobs and/or businesses that I have been involved in ~ 23! My first paying job was at age 10 when my Dad brought a pillow case home from work that belonged to a buddy of his. This man lived alone in a studio apartment so he sent his few clothes home with my Dad each week. Mom would do his laundry along with ours and my job was to iron his few shirts, handkerchiefs and sheets (yes, I ironed his sheets) and neatly fold the remainder of his things. That was my first paying job. In all my years since then I have done so many things - not because I don't stick with things, I guess because life just has taken me in such different directions and always something happens to change my course. Beginning with that first job of ironing and looking back at all of the various things I've done, I have always been about helping people.
Now at 60 I get reflective like this. So many things left undone and so many places that I thought I would have seen by now are still just dreams in my journals or cut out pictures on my vision board. I have far fewer years left to 'do' things yet I feel the same inside as that 23 year old with dreams of beautiful places and helping others. In 23 years I will be 83. Some may say that is old. I choose to believe that in this next 23 years I will hold on to the passion from my 23 year old heart and keep striving for the dreams that are yet unrealized. In each day I will listen to people and hear what their dreams are and how I can help them achieve them. I think my 23rd 'job' is what I have been looking for all along and I know it is someone else's answer too. I just wonder who will be the next person I share it with?
Dare to dream with me A dream starts when you take a chance.
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. Les Brown
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