Yes, I have been a good citizen, staying home and keeping my head down - to reconstruct a piece of history!
It
all started with my continued effort to de-clutter. My goal was to
throw away "something - or - anything" every week. When I found a whole
box of weekly calendar books of mine from 1996-2011 (missing 2007 for
unknown reasons), my initial reaction was - "Great, I can finally throw
away this big box of heavy books." Then, a soft voice: "Let me take a
look before throwing them away..." and that's when the de-cluttering
took an unexpected turn.
I flipped through less than 10 pages of the 2001 book and told myself right away: "Wow, I can't throw these away!"
What
followed was several weeks of intense work of digitizing the 16-year
unforgettable journey. I stopped using calendar books when I started my
most recent job in January 2012. Why? I don't know. Maybe I've
finally come to the realization that there are more important things in
life than a job!
Looking through these 780 pages felt like traveling back in time - when I took notes of every detail of my projects so diligently;
when I spent so much time traveling for work; when the companies were
so chaotic that I couldn't recognize the 2 names of my bosses on the
page; when my little Michelle would remind me of her existence by
periodically inserting her crooked handwriting in my books... It was
truly a bumpy journey - filled with long nights, working holidays, and
endless "change" and "unknown..."
Then
it was the day when we sent Michelle to grade school, to junior high,
to high school, and finally, to college in Boston on 8/22/2008; the spring break when we went to Key West; the summer break when we went to Alaska; the
winter break when we went to Mexico; the spring breaks and winter
breaks when we went to China to see grandma and grandpa...
Traveling
back in time is a profound experience. You'd have a chance to look
back on life with different and/or better perspectives; You'd have a
holistic view on the entire journey, to understand the things that you were
too young to understand in the past; You'd finally have time to reflect
and absorb... And more importantly, you'd have a chance to ask yourself
again: "what's the most important thing in my life?" With that,
hopefully, you'd be able to live forward with a better sense of
awareness and clarity.
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