40 Down, 40 To Go?

Assuming I live to be eighty, then half my life is behind me. What do I have to show for it? I have made too many mistakes to mention. I have traveled, though not as well as I would have liked. I have partied 'til dawn with rock stars, and been courted by royalty. Some of my best memories were made in the English countryside with an unpretentious girl named Janie May. I hope she was able to help save some of the South American rain forests as she so passionately spoke about over many a pint. As I take inventory of my life up to now, it has been an intricate tapestry colorful and rich with each thread representing friendships, lovers, laughter, loneliness, and heartbreak. I've had a pretty good life so far, so what's next?

I want to see the sun rise over the Grand Canyon, and the Northern Lights. I want to sleep in a haunted B&B, and in the Ice Hotel in Sweden. I want to learn to speak French, and then spend a summer in Paris. I want to ride a motorcycle over the Beartooth Mountains in Montana. I want to spend a week in a cabin in Northern California without another living soul around. I want to visit every state in these great United States of America. I want to perform one random act of kindness every day. I want to save a life. These are all things on my to-do list, and some, all, or none of it may ever come to pass. I've already done it all in my dreams

Experiencing all of those wonderful things would be fulfilling to be sure, but I have a better understanding of what my time spent here is supposed to be about. I never did much of anything right, or very well for that matter, until I became a mother. It is unquestionably my reason for being here. I'm not perfect, but I give my girls my whole heart, love outpouring like a never ending flow of water from a rusty old porcelain pitcher. My girls are my life. They are my greatest love. They will be my greatest legacy. When I'm gone, no one will remember the things that I did, or that I was a runway model, band groupie, or flight attendant. No one will care if I was ever fat, thin, gray headed or tattooed. They will have living testimony to what a great mother I was, and that's all any woman could ever ask for.