Would I Relive One Year?

If I could relive one year of my life, I do not believe there would be one year. It would be more apt to be segments of my life. Even then, I do not know if I would relive those either.

When I hear the word relive, I imagine a duplicate year. The exact same year happening twice. If that happened, other years would have to be altered to make room for it. That would cause a rift in the equilibrium of the world and change today.

I do not want to change today.

My life today is nothing grand or glorious. It is not perfect. But I love every moment of my life just the way it is.

I love the time I spend with my husband, the boys and their spouses, and the girls and their families. I love when we play pool together. Tim usually wins. Everyone else plays pretty well.

I do not want to play well.

I want to have fun and cause everyone else to laugh.

While everyone else is trying to make a good shot, I am usually behaving like a child and screaming, “Y’all cheated!”

We swim at one of the boys’ homes. When we stay with one of the girls, we spend time in their pool. I love playing with the children and behaving like a child with them.

I love hearing about the adventures of my siblings. Sometimes they tell me when we see one another. Other times, I hear the stories over the phone.

These are the people who are part of my life today. Reliving another year might mean sacrificing these moments, and I do not want to give them up.

I would miss walking through the yard with Tim.

I would even miss the time we stopped at a store and bought a lot of junk food just so the two of us could behave like kids. Afterward, Tim drove us near a lake and started doing doughnuts along the shoreline in his pickup.

He was spinning that truck around like it was some sort of whirlyjig.

It scared the heck out of me.

Those are the moments that make up my life. Some are peaceful. Others have me holding on while Tim spins his truck around beside a lake after we have filled ourselves with junk food.

Why would I sacrifice those memories to repeat a year I have already lived?

I accept every moment of my life. That includes the years when there was no money. It includes the times when I felt depressed. There were other times when I did not have a job or a place to stay.

It also includes experiencing physical violence from someone I thought loved me.

Being abused was not a positive experience. It was not right. I accept that it was part of my life, but it gave me strength and an understanding I would not have otherwise.

I comprehend with more depth.

I have had the privilege of speaking to other women who were experiencing abuse. I could speak to them on their level because I understood. I was not looking at them from the outside. I had been there.

I understood.

God is present in every experience. That does not make the wrong things right. It means I was not alone in them.

Everything I have lived through has brought me to where I am today. Removing one part might change something else with it. I do not want to remove one difficult year only to discover that I also removed something more precious.

Now, if you ask whether I would enjoy spending time looking back at the special moments, I would say yes.

I would love to sit beside my parents again. I would embrace them. I would let them know that I understand better now.

When I was a child, I just thought my father worked. That was what fathers did. I did not consider his life or what he was giving up for us.

Dad thought he needed to work hard and give us the things of this world. He thought he had to provide the diamond.

What he did not realize was that who he was and the love he gave us were far more precious than anything he could buy.

I remember the summers when he would give us twenty five cents to buy a candy bar and a Coke to share. It was only a quarter. At the time, I thought about the candy bar and the Coke.

Today, I think about my father giving us that quarter.

That memory is worth more than the things of this world he worked so hard to give us.

I understand my mother differently now too. I was her tenth child. She was entering menopause while raising children.

As a child, I did not consider what that must have been like for her. She was Mama. I did not think about her life before me or everything she gave up for others.

When you grow older, your eyes open. You begin to see your parents as people. You recognize sacrifices you could not see when you were young.

Funny how time gives you a different perspective when you are willing to look for the positive.

I wish I had understood my parents better before. I would love to sit beside my father and share the candy bar and Coke with him. I would hug my mother and say, “I love you,” just a little louder.

But longing to see them is different from wanting to relive a year.

That is all right. I will see them again in heaven.

The years without money taught me that money cannot buy happiness. It can make life easier. It can provide security. But having no money is not the end.

Those years taught me to appreciate the small things.

Cherish what you have because you could have less.

I prefer life to happen as it happens. I do not want to go backward knowing everything I know today. I do not want to know tomorrow before it arrives.

No crystal ball.

Every year had its own flavor because I did not know what was coming. There were unexpected turns and whirlwinds. There were valleys too. Repeating a year would change all of that. I might experience the same events, but they would not feel the same because they would no longer be new.

There are moments I would love to visit again. But I would not sacrifice today to experience them.

Today, I walk through the yard with Tim.

My family gathers around a pool table while I accuse everyone of cheating.

I hear about my siblings’ adventures. I spend time with the boys and their spouses. I enjoy being with the girls and their families. The children give me an excuse to behave like one of them.

Today even has a pickup spinning like a whirlyjig beside a lake.

I would not change any of it.

If I were in one of my darkest moments today, I would want the memories of the good to outweigh the bad. Sometimes bad moments can make one feel as though there is no good.

But that just means the scale is off.

I would not relive one year of my life.

I would remember it.

Then I would return to today.

Today is the life God has given me, and I love it just the way it is.