My younger daughter was peacefully colouring a princess dress when her older sister committed what was, in her little world, a serious crime... She took her crayon.
My two year old immediately slammed her hand towards her sister and let out a yell loud enough for everyone in the house to know that an injustice had taken place.
Her older sister knew exactly what she was doing. She looked across at me, realised I had witnessed the whole thing, and gave me a cheeky smile. I laughed. (Quietly, privately kind)
My younger daughter obviously didn't find it funny. Someone had taken her crayon. For those few seconds, that was probably the biggest problem in her entire world.
I have been thinking about that little episode recently. As children, the things we feel we lack can seem so important. At two, it might be a crayon. Later, perhaps it is the toy everyone else has. Then as we grow older, the things get bigger too... an opportunity we never had, the affirmation we wished someone had given us, the security we never quite felt, or even the kind of family we wished we had experienced.
And I wonder if some of these things eventually grow up with us. They become our aspirations. Maybe our aspirations are a little like a coin. On one side is what we hope our life will become. I want to do well in life. I want financial security. I want a good marriage. I want my children to have a good head start. All good things, but flip the coin around and sometimes the underside tells another story... what we once felt was missing.
Someone who deeply values financial security may remember what it was like not having enough. Someone who really wants a peaceful home may know what the opposite feels like. A parent determined to give their children every opportunity may still remember the opportunities they wished they had.
Perhaps what we aspire towards and what we once lacked are sometimes two sides of the same coin. I think marriage can be like this too. We can carry a surprisingly detailed picture of what a good marriage should look like. The kind of husband or wife we want to be. The kind of home we want to create. The kind of childhood we want our children to have. We think we are describing our future, perhaps some of that picture was drawn by our past too.
And I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. Some of the good things we build today may exist precisely because we know what it feels like to go without them. What interests me more is what happens when we finally get there.
You finally have enough... You finally have the family you wanted....Your children have opportunities you never had... You look around one day and realise... this is it. This is something my younger self once hoped for.
For years, you thought you were running towards a finishing line. But somehow, after crossing it, life continues. Some of those old fears and insecurities are still there. Perhaps that is because what we thought was the finishing line was actually the starting line.
Now we have to learn how to enjoy what we have without constantly fearing that we might lose it. To love our family without expecting them to make up for everything we once lacked. To give our children opportunities without quietly asking them to live the childhood we wished we had. That thought has made me look at aspirations a little differently.
Here's how you can think about this for yourself. Think about one thing you really want in your life right now. Something that, for whatever reason, matters a lot to you. Then flip the coin over and ask... Why does this matter so much to me?
Perhaps the answer is not only somewhere in your future. Part of it might be sitting quietly in your past. And maybe when you finally cross that finishing line, you will realise something else...
You have only just reached the starting line... In a good way