2012

When I was this age, or maybe a bit younger, I figured out that I would turn 50 in 2012.  It seemed like an unbridgeable distance of time.  Like another continent, some place I would need a passport to enter.

I had no idea that time would travel so quickly.  That there would be college.  Then Miami.  Then graduate school. Then Cleveland, and more Cleveland. I had no idea there would be loneliness, deep sadness. Years spent wrestling with myself, forsaken.  I also had no idea there would be tanned feet.  Carriage houses.  Odd Girl Out. ZOOM.  Fernway. Forest Hill.  I had no inclination there would be Kenyon.  Karen.  Chardon Lakes.  Highland Park. I did not know I would meet Helen.  Or Sarah.  Or Grace.  Or John. I did not know I would shatter an arm, shatter a heart, hold her hand as mother died.  I never envisioned Asheville.  Zinck's Inn.  Ithaca Gorges. Superballs.  November sixteenths.  I did not know I would come to count on a man from Gloucester, a woman from Minnesota, two lawyers, and a four year old. Never planned to take walks talking about breast cancer, never planned on crying in the middle of Main Street in Akron.  Didn't ever conceive of a shaman retreat or a palm read in Lilydale.  I would never have thought it possible that I would stand in a pulpit.  Stand in front of an applauding audience.  Stand in front of a football stadium full of people.  I had no idea I would be given some 600 hundred children to love. No, I never thought about that.  Or a home on a street like this street.

All I knew was that I would be fifty.  I hoped I would be some older version of myself: smart enough, athletic enough, funny at times, kind.  Lucky for me, I've turned out to be all of those and more.  (And truth told, the "more" is more important than those first attributes assigned to me when I was young).

I thought, for sure, I would be old.  Married. Gray haired.  Mrs. Someone.  Interestingly, none of those are true.  I am far younger than I ever thought I would be, still naive and trusting.  Still single.  Still Reinhold, no Mrs.  I never dreamed I would still have so much to do and so much still unanswered.

None of my life was known to me when this picture was taken.  Nothing that matters now had occurred.  That's a retrospective wonder, that tonight, as one year changes to the next, seems to create beautiful entree to the next 30 years of empty space.

Not empty, as in void.  Empty, as in so much to learn and do.

Hello 2012.  I'm glad you are here.