Wright on Emily Layne: 2012

So this weekend My Dad's side of the family are all headed to Lake Charles, Lousinana for a family reunion. I can't help but wonder what my grandpa is feeling right now, and then in the same thought I can't help but think how lucky I am to be almost 30 and have a Grandpa still around to experience life with.

My grandpa's brother is not going to make it much longer (if past this year), and so a reunion has been planned between the two to pretty much say goodbye!.......pause for the weight of that statement! So since traveling is hard in your old age and they havent seen much of each other the last few years.....means really we all (the extended families I mean) havent seen much of each other as well. So here we are June 8, 2012 coming together to share a weekend of life together.

So being the reflector that I am I cannot help but think what great significance this weekend will hold. I mean not only for my grandparents, and those matriarchs and patriarchs.....but for the rest of us there to have forever with us. It is funny how all of the sudden in the midst of living.....life happens. I mean so much passes us by, but there are moments of true significance that forever shape who you are. I am ovewhelmed at the thought of all of our lives coming to a end.....to be able to look back and say....well I dont know what you would say. I mean just to be able to look back on 80 something years worth of life happening. Then to say goodbye to someone who has been in nearly all of those years. I dont know how you could not be moved by that.

You and I will meet again
when we're least expecting it
One day in some far off place
I will recongizne your face
I wont say goodbye my friend
for you and I will meet again.
-Tom Petty

So my girlfriends and I have been reminiscing all week about our early twenties,and also planning a Vegas blowout in honor of us entering into our thirties. Don't get me wrong THESE WILL BE THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE!!! However, I would like to mourn the loss of one amazing decade and pay tribute to a time that can never be fabricated again in any of our lives.So, I recently have been talking with my girlfriends about our up and coming 30th birthday parties. I mean honestly so many song title run through my head when I think about approaching this age.

" I still remember when 30 was old"

"My next 30 years Im gonna settle all the scores, cry a little less....laugh a little more"

" We were wanna be rebels who didnt have a clue, with out rock n roll t-shirts and our typically bad attitudes"

"Only the Good die young...that's what they say"

"Gonna get right with the lord, or there will be hell to pay.....but I aint in no hurry today"

"My 18th summer I was a cocky up-and- comer.....cranking up born to run, turned left out the drive with the pistons open wide"

There are so many songs that remind us of what used to be. I think I would be lying if I said 30 didn't bring a sobering revelation that my youth is rapidly fleeting. I mean don't get me wrong, as much as I wouldn't change a thing I have been through.....I also wouldn't want to relive a lot of those what I like to call UNSTABLE years. However, I will tell you what I miss the most, and honestly from talking to different people.....what I think everyone misses to some degree. I like to call it my Free falling spirit. I mean think about it.....did a schedule ever even enter into our brains. I mean aside for the college classes we had to stick with.....but that never even seemed real to me the way life does now. I mean I was free falling, born to run, living on a pray, school's out for summer, footloose and fancy free! The furthest thing from my mind was that freedom would ever end. It is a beautiful thing that period of your life....you make your best friends, and your biggest mistakes. One of my favorite quotes....probably cause I am the type of person that constantly has my foot in my mouth is " I make really big mistakes, but I also make really big comebacks". I think it took me the longest out of all of my friends, besides maybe a few right there with me ...... to grow up. Really I don't that as bad anymore.....I just took the longest to get my head out of the clouds and stop living on song lyrics;) Oh who am I kidding I still live on song lyrics.....the melody just changed:) So, as I approach my thirties.....I truly feel worn, tired, jaded, and skeptical......more so then I ever imagined 10 years ago when I entered into my 20's. However, I have become resilient, capable, strong, proud, and warm, and much more forgiving. My boss told me the other day as I just approached a new job.....I know you want to be at a level of your best already, but there is no way around the learning process you have to go through it. Well aint that the truth....they don't have quote upon quote about life being the Journey if it wasn't. I am looking forward to what lies ahead with tears in my eyes and so much appreciation of all I am leaving. One day my life will behold a husband, children, etc. .........I just want to give credit where credit is due. So with all of my girls we will say goodbye with a ever so respectful bash of a party......and honor the years that we will never have back, that shaped us into the beautiful disasters we are today. I will forever miss my twenties!!! There will not once be a time I reflect on you and my heart doesn't pound, or will I not be able to taste the adventure and freedom like it was yesterday!! I made some of my best friends, learned what it was to laugh till you cry, how important your friends were when every boy broke your heart, I floated the river till Texas was in my soul, I was over zealous, poor as anyone could be, but completely and deliriously free. There will never be another time of such invincibility,but to me and my girls....my life savers, partners in crime, my refuge!!! Oh will we remember!

I think these two pictures describe the two decades perfectly.