Learn. Live. Love. An occassional glimpse of the Kaisers

What color is your parachute?

This was Gwen’s third day of swim lessons. She’s doing fine, and having a great time. There’s something else going on, though.

There’s something about being at the pool that reaches back about twenty years and rekindles a feeling in me that “tomorrow, anything is possible.” Why the pool does this, I don’t know. I can’t swim well. Actually, swimming is pretty much a sore spot in my history — I don’t want to talk about it.

Maybe there is some “olympic hopeful” stuff sprinkled into my brain? Not hopeful for me, but just hopeful for those who have worked so hard to get to the olympics. I’m not a die-hard olympic junkie, but I do get off on the hard-work stories.

Another possibility is weightlifting with Matt and some other high school friends. We used to lift after school a few days a week. Then we’d sauna, shower, and mess around in the pool, diving and stuff, until the Sullivan Civic Center closed for the night. The pool for me mostly meant diving into the water and then struggling back to the side of the pool before I drowned… but it was still cool. Matt even got me to start going off the high dive.

Why would that be tied to “the promise of tomorrow?” Because in high school, I was clueless. I was excellent at schoolwork, decent at extra-curricular, and just figured I would continue working hard and get everything I wanted out of life.

The problem is, I did not know what I wanted out of life, or even where to begin. I barely got into college, because I didn’t know how early you had to apply. I thought you just showed up, signed up, and you’re good to go so long as you had the scores! Then, I really only knew I was good in math and science, and very interested. I had no focus at all.

So, whatever, fast-forward to today, where I’m thirty-seven years old, still no college degree, still clueless what I want to do. I do have a beautiful family, and a job that is really super if you stop and think about it. My hard work has paid off in many ways, and continues to do so.

But.

There’s always a “but” with me and these stories…

My hard work might be better utilized if I could come up with some goal, some direction, something I really want, something worth fighting for, something worth going through hardships.

I don’t know what that is, but anyway, thanks for reading. Your job, kind reader, is to comment with your own thoughts on where you are today, how you got here, is it the place you want to be, are you goal-oriented, that sort of thing. Do it anonymously, I don’t care. Just do it.