Have you ever taken the time to think about how the people and things you love have changed throughout the course of your life? If not, take a few minutes right now and think of a few examples. If you’re like me, what has stayed the same and what has changed may surprise you.
I’m 25 days away from taking the big “I do” plunge, so naturally, the topic of love is on my mind. Once I really started digging into how who and what I love has changed over the years, I realized there’s one fundamental lesson to be learned from all this reflecting (more on that in a bit). Former PR pro turned blogger extraordinaire Lauren Weber wrote a guest post about how love and what matters most in life can quickly change, but I wanted to revisit the topic and go a bit deeper.
It’s not easy to get naked and let people in who we may not know and trust, but for the sake of this post, I want to share a few examples of how what I love has changed and stayed the same during my meager 26 years on this earth.
- When I was five, I loved to sing and perform for people. I carried around this little tape player with a microphone and would sing Debbie Gibson and Whitney Houston songs to anyone who would listen. Now, I’m not quite as brave, but I’m a big fan of singing karaoke duets. I keep the solo singing within the confines of my car.
- Up until my later high school years, I did not like talking to people I didn’t know well (somewhere shortly after kindergarten my fearlessness gave way to shyness). It’s not because I didn’t like meeting new people, but rather that I was shy. I wouldn’t even order a pizza over the phone. When I decided freshmen year of college that I wanted to major in integrative public relations at CMU, my dad was concerned because he knew I didn’t exactly have an affinity to public communication. Now, I embody my PR career and have embraced the world of mass communication (that of course has since exploded since the surge of social media).
- I sought out thrill-seeking experiences when I was younger. I loved sitting in the front seat of roller coasters at Cedar Point. I’ve gone parasailing three times, each time going one level of elevation higher. I loved going fast in cars, on my bike, on rollerblades and on sleds. Now, I’m not as big of a fan of high-intensity activities. I did climb a snow-covered volcano when I studied abroad in Chile, but you wouldn’t catch me on any roller coasters or sleds now, nor would I do an extreme sport like white water rafting. I am planning to hike another volcano and zip glide in Costa Rica next month, so I guess you can say I’ve settled in the middle on the extreme activities spectrum.
- I absolutely love to read. I’m told I started reading at two (prodigy child, right here). I used to compete with this girl in my fourth grade class to see which of us would read the most books in one week. My reading has shifted a bit now because I read way more online than I do in print, but I still have a hunger and passion for learning through reading.
- Growing up, my close friends were the people who I spent the most time with in person. Now, some of my closest friends are people who I met through social media who I don’t see every week. I love and care about them just as much as I do my friends who I’ve known for more than a decade.
There you have it – a glimpse into my current and previous loves in life. Maybe one day you’ll see pics of me as a five-year-old dressed like Debbie Gibson and belting into a microphone. If you’re really lucky, you may see pics of me when I loved having blonde hair (oh yeah, I was blonde for a good six years). That’ll give ya a laugh or two.
Now are you ready for the big, important lesson gleaned from all of this?
Who and what you love will continue to evolve as you move through the different phases of your life. That’s expected, and it’s natural. What happens that sometimes isn’t expected is when you stop doing the things you love or spending as much time as you should with the people you love.
That’s the grand lesson here: Always have love in your life. Always be doing the things that you love, and always find time to be with the people you love. If you find yourself slipping, regain composure and shift your focus back on to whatever love it was that used to surround you.
Your turn. Did you realize your loves in life have changed several times, or have they mostly stayed consistent? Feel free to start a trend and write your own post reflecting on the waves of love in your life. And if you do write your own post, you better be sharing it with me. 🙂