Looking Back

Image by Olivia Gunnel Photography. See her website here!

 

Life is, for many, often fast-paced, with myriads of things to accomplish and tick off the list that is ever-growing and expanding. It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind and forget to relax a little, to look back, for a moment at least, at what led you to where you are now. Sometimes we want to forget the past. Sometimes we feel too busy or forward-focused to reflect. While we don’t want to get stuck in looking back in nostalgia or perhaps regret, reviewing your path helps you determine what you want and need to do in the now and for the future.

I often have a hard time slowing down. In the last few years I’ve become increasing focused on goals and trying to use time intentionally, although I have a long way to go with this. The poem below was a fun use of imaginative imagery for what the man who is now my betrothed (ha, that sounds so deliciously old-fashioned in my old soul’s brain) has often encouraged me to do. I wrote the poem about three months ago, but now I look back and see that it rings even more true.

Without crossing too far into my personal life, here’s a bit of background on the poem. Back on June 2nd, 2018 I had the privilege of singing with a choir in Carnegie Hall and spent time in New York City for the first time in my life. Wow, was that exciting!

The same week my family was dealing with a new crisis which has changed and continued to impact our lives to now. On May 30th this year, my younger brother I went to Manhattan with (and I knew it was likely the first and only trip we’d ever take together) got married. While still in Manhattan, we were invited to Italy to sing with the same group in 2020 but both realized we had no idea what we’d be doing in a year from then and both wondered if maybe, possibly, one or both of us would be married by then.

Well, a year after our concert, the most adoring, uninfluenced (by others’ opinions), considerate, brave, crazy, challenge-accepting man proposed to me. Yes, that’s us up above. So while there are new priorities and things to prepare for, he keeps reminding me to “take off my shoes”.

 

Take Off My Shoes by Aubri Wilson


I just want to take off my shoes

And rest more than I’ve allowed myself

To in a year

I can’t believe the anniversary’s almost here

Of the summer that made me smile in awe

And also made me cry over loss

When I did not know I stood at the brink

Of a mighty change, and cycles of whirling

Upside down and around




But I did not have you last year

And if you’re here, don’t leave

If you’re here, please hold me a while

And I will be better

Give me some honey, and I’ll revive

Almost, I apologize for the crazy I brought

But you say I’m the best luck you’ve had

And tell me to take off my shoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

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