my trail of breadcrumbs

I have a very rich family history. There are Pilgrims, Daughters of the American Revolution, one of my grandfathers who had about fifty brothers and sisters half of whom were born in the U.S. while half were born in Sao Miguel and there was an eccentric great great great-ish Aunt who wrote these incredibly awesome books, and those are just a few pieces of my big family story.

I've been thinking lately that the buck seems to stop just shy of me; and now I realize that I want to be part of all that rich family history. I want to contribute. I want to be remembered.

This Saturday a little "tap tap tap' at the door welcomed in our local Census taker, coming to count our family as actual people in the number that makes up the population of the United States. Rad.

She sat at our kitchen table after politely waving off my pathetic excuses for dishes, dirty socks, crumbs, dried up markers (WHY do we always have so many dried up markers in this house! "if you like it than you should-a put a cap on it, if you like it than you should-a put a cap on it... oh oh oh NO NO NO NO NO oh NO NONO" ehem... anyways...). I was actually more embarrassed about the fact that my daughter was inside watching Spongebob on such a gorgeous, warm Saturday afternoon instead of outside dancing in the sunlight...

She got out her #2 pencil and gave the whole shebang about the process, she mentioned privacy, blah blah blah (unlike my sister, I do not claim myself of Hispanic origin) and then the last thing I caught was that the record that she was about to take of our family would be made public in something like, 72 years. 72 years? Who the heck was going to care in 72 years? Her answer is what brought me to all this... this wondering about who I was and how exactly did I plan to leave my mark.

People, after 72 years, can have full access to our census information? So what... why would anyone want access?
Her answer: "because your future family can use it to research their history; their genealogy, their ancestors".
Holycrap. I'm going to be an ancestor someday! Someday, someone who is related to me- will find me and want to know about me. Again, Rad. And Scary. Scary-rad.

So keeping that in mind, I think I need to figure out how to live with much more purpose in my life. I need to try to live like I'm leaving an impression and I need to find out how to do that in the most honest, real and sincere way possible.

I don't want to be the ancestor known as "the one who had potential that she completely ignored and lacked the confidence and drive to make the family history even richer". I want to be known as "the one who quite possibly made the most significant impact on the family through her thoughts and her actions".

I hope that I really can do that. I want to be significant. I want to not only make an impression on the future generations who want to know but for the people in my life NOW who need to see that I'm at least trying to do my part.

I'm making history already... won't you join me?

**I'm still working on my little wrap up of Sweet Retreat- stay tunes!**