When I was young, I wanted a tree house. It seemed like all the trees in our 3 acre yard were ridiculously tall, old trees, or very young, weak trees. My tree house dream seemed as if it would never become a reality. Well, I decided to do what any driven, imaginative child would do. I had a master plan. I would dig a hole in the ground. That's it. Dig a hole, large enough to be an "underground tree house" (well, minus the tree of course. And minus the house, too...). I set out to work. I employed everyone I knew to help me. My two best friends, R and S helped me daily. I'm sure I forced my brother to help as well.
We dug for months. Eventually, I kid you not, we had a huge rectangular hole. It was about 5 feet long by 4 feet wide and probably 4 feet deep. I kid you not. We dug, day after day in the solid Georgia clay as mosquitos and gnats flew about, birds chirped, and the pine needles fell. Season after season, we continued. My brilliant plan was to stack a foot or so of left over bricks from the house (cemented with mud--and yes, for some reason I thought mud would be a forever lasting mortar) and then easily lay a piece of plywood over the top, with a door cut into it, of course.
Why am I thinking of this at 1:17 AM on a school night? I have no clue. I guess I can learn many lessons from this childhood project.
#1--I would give almost anything to move back to those times. I loved that little city--the culture, the community, the weather. I love the South.
#2--I guess this is a reminder of how there are always more options. When a tree isn't available, the thick Georgia clay worked. I feel like I am making 42 decisions in my life right now. I'm not sure which one is right--but odds are, they will all work out perfectly.
#3--Some things are ok to leave unfinished. I never put the final piece of wood on the top of my "tree house." We sold the house (all the while, I'm certain that my mom thought it would be a sore spot and made me cover up the "grave" with pine straw) and left. I didn't see the finished product, but I learned a lot in the journey (not to mention I probably ruined TONS of T-shirts with the clay and burned tons of daylight). I wonder what things in my life I can just leave "unfinished" and move on to bigger and better things.
#4--I need to go to bed, so that is all. :) How's that for an abrupt finish of spewing my thoughts...?
2 comments:
I wish i could see it.
Good story and analogy. Love you! Good luck leaving the unfinished stuff behind ;) It's probably what you need to do.
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