change

Inevitable and Difficult...
Two words to describe change.

This past weekend I spent time at my family's lakeside rustic cabin and thought about change. This cabin has been an annual vacation with my family, and through the years there has been much change...
Thirty years ago my extended family owned 7 cabins on the lake. All our families would get together: cook, swim, read, relax, discuss, boat, enjoy each other's company. As time passed kids were born and invited to join in the family fun. Enter life jackets, swim lessons, sparklers, bon fires, smores, reading, the TRAIN, the pump to get fresh water, clambakes, jumping contests - off the float - who could just highest, make the biggest splash, best form, etc. We took trips on Sunday morning to Day's, a store in the Belgrade Lakes region, to get donuts and the Sunday newspaper. We would relax on the screened porch, eat donuts, read the comics, I mean the newspaper... We would go swimming, boating, eat lunch, check the train tracks to see if our precious pennies were smushed flat, pick raspberries, go swimming, run around with cousins and second cousins, eat dinner on the screened porch looking over the lake, have a bonfire, stumble into bed exhausted, only to do it all again the next day...
Fast forward thirty years - our extended family owns two camps and a cousin owns a third, which he has renovated to be a year-round house on the lake. The train isn't as exciting and doesn't come as often, the donuts don't taste as good, family members have passed away, cousins have grown up and don't visit as often, some cousins live as far as Alaska, California and Colorado. Change, it's inevitable.
This weekend, I spent time with family in Maine. My husband was away at youth camp, so I decided to go on vacation with my family without him. It was fun, but it was different. Life has changed. It's inevitable, but it's different.
Don't get me wrong. I love Maine. It holds MANY memories. But life has changed. This weekend I got donuts at Day's with my 9 year old cousin, I passed the memory on to her. :) I did read the Sunday paper; the news and the comics... I went wake-boarding, tubing, played mini-golf and ate Gifford's ice-cream with younger cousins, creating memories of Maine for them. I sat on the front porch looking out onto the lake, I read my book for hours, I kayaked. I relaxed. Life has changed, change is inevitable, change is good but change is difficult.
I miss those Maine days as a child, and I'm looking forward to creating new memories.
Change in life is much like my vacations in Maine...