Footprints

I have spent all too much of my break watching Downton Abbey. This show takes place in the early 1900s. About a family that owns a large estate, there is a constant battle over how to keep everything running amidst disease, war, and unexpected loss. But it doesn't only follow the royal line. There are stories among the servants, among the quiet people who sweep and dust and cook and serve to earn a living. And though I know it's just a story, I am constantly amazed by the thought that people actually lived like this.

Today Mom and I were eating lunch and I asked her if she could live in any time period, which one it would be. "Oh! This one. For sure," she readily replied. She proceeded to tell of all the advantages we have: internet, the ability to contact others, longer lifespans. It all made sense to me, but I have somehow always loved the idea of living in the days of carriages and home gardens and log cabins. I want to wake up to the rooster crowing and wear long dresses and know all my neighbors.

I don't usually feel like people get me. In fact, in all my life, I have had one friend who I would say I truly felt understood by. I'm not complaining. We can't get into each other's minds. And I'm by no means the world's greatest communicator. But it has always blown my mind that there can be so many people and yet we are all so different.

And then I think to myself….There are so many people in the world today. But what about the people who didn't make it last night? And what about those who lived one hundred years ago? Or a thousand years ago? And my goodness, by the time I get to the beginning of time I cannot even begin to fathom the footprints of people who walked this earth.

And I feel all too well understood.

I find it crazy- watching my childhood end, going to college, growing up. There are so many things I want to stay the same, and I feel so helpless and confused as I watch them change. But I suppose it's the way things go. Changes that are bound to happen at some point. It's the cycle of life and it dare not be interrupted.

But what I find so intriguing- so unreal and so comforting- is that I am one of billions and billions and billions to experience this. Here I sit, all raveled up and consumed and overwhelmed at times by my circumstances when, across the street, across the country, across the world, others feel the same. And then reach back with the hand of time and there are more.

How small I am.

I suppose I am not the first to think of this: the mind-boggling fact of the number of people who have lived. But I am glad I have because it makes me realize that I am well understood. There are many people who have seen what I see: pain and heartache and joy and laughter. There are so many who have walked this earth. I"ll walk it longer than some and shorter than others. But the chance alone, I believe, to live, is a cause for celebration. For what wonderful things there are to do and discover.

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." -Abraham Lincoln