This is one of those big picture life questions that always causes some level of anxiety for me. Sometimes it’s hard getting through a single day. Add the stress of thinking about what I want to be remembered for at the end of my life and forget about it.
Regardless, there are a few times throughout the year when the question resurfaces in my mind. To some extent, I think about it at the beginning of each year when I’m brainstorming what I want to accomplish in the coming year. That thought process always feels more calculated and expected. The times it catches me off guard and makes me pause at the enormity of it? The beginning of March and the end of November. More specifically, on my son’s birthdays.
Raising kids is hard work. And the stakes are high. I tend to get nostalgic (even more than normal) around their birthdays. Time is passing so quickly and before I know it, they’ll be grown with families of their own. That reality also reminds me of my own life. Of my goals and wishes. Of the kind of life I want to live. Of how I want to make people feel.
I don’t have a specific legacy for my life. I do, however, have some general ideas of the type of life I want to live. I want to make a difference. Big and small. I want to make people feel welcome and included, just as they are.
I want to make the world a better place for my sons. I want to set an example of how to be a kind, loving person who finds joy in this hard world we live in. I want to be a woman people will feel proud to know.
I want to live life in a way that makes me proud of the woman I’m becoming every day.
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