Milestone or Millstone or Just A Stone or Papa Wuz A Rolling Stone

This is a milestone

We tend to gauge our lives, for the most part, according to milestones.  We mark some milestones with trophies, certificates, plaques, ribbons, medals, pens, pins, acrylic or glass paraphernalia, and various other plates, cups, mugs, saucers, and photographs.  Several of these are even presented with a dinner, drinks (lots and lots of drinks on someone else’s tab), dessert, formalwear, and lots of polite, yet insincere, banter.

 There are a few milestones that truly deserve to me noted.  One’s birth, for example, is quite the milestone event, as is one’s demise, which should also be noted with some sort of decorum.  Between those two events, most milestones become more like millstones and are just something to be endured. 

I can’t say that I remember being born, although the photos of me were rather adorable, and the fact that I am here is proof that the milestone did, in fact, take place.  Most birthdays that have come and gone, with all the cake and singing, and I can’t say that there’s any single one that stands out above the others; as a matter of fact, I can’t say that any other day (holiday-wise) stands out above the rest. 

 However, there have been events in my life that I shall always remember.  My graduations (high school, college, and graduate school), for example, are milestones I’ll remember.  Why? Certainly not for the slip of paper I got for the enormous funding invested therein; not for the pageantry either (I couldn’t even begin to tell you who the speakers were nor what they droned on about.  I actually think I napped during those parts.), rather it was the indelible imprint upon my life that I felt.  That stamp of accomplishment, if you will. 

Now what if we could stop looking at our lives as a series of milestones creeping ever closer (with our imminent demise at the end) and, instead, enjoyed our jaunt down the road of life.  Skip, run, jump, leapfrog, toddle, waddle, tiptoe, whatever you like down that road.  My point is simple, it’s YOUR life…make it worth remembering. 

I have no desire for my epitaph to be one so somber as, “Here lies some dorky goober who was born, existed, and now is fertilizing the grass you’re standing on.”  I want no weeping or sorrow.  I truly hope my epitaph is something along the lines of: “A life lived to the last drop.” And I want that to be my epitaph because the statement is true, not just because I asked for it. So THERE!

“Life is not a matter of milestones, but of moments between the milestones” – Robert Frost.  We are but a blip on the line of time.  Make your blip a light!

By the by, if you haven’t made it to Lauren Rains’ website, you really ought to prowl about there.  It’s VERY inspiring and she’s quite the contemplation enthusiast.  Don’t just sit there like a butt pimple,  CLICK HERE!!!