Santa Cruz Beach, California

This warm summer day has me reflecting on my childhood in California.  Memories from nineteen years ago, at times feel fresh in my mind.  At the age of fourteen, I had an exciting life ahead of me.  I remember a long weekend in Santa Cruz with some friends...in fact, it was Memorial Day weekend.  I was so excited to be away from home and there with my friends.  We spent the entire time on the beach, surrounded by so many different people. The rides, the music, the smell of sea and sand.  What really made an impression was sunset in Santa Cruz. I remember seeing so many interesting people, circled in small groups around their beach side campfires.  Most of them were in their early-mid twenties...and I thought they looked so cool with their dark tans, their guitars and their surf boards. I just knew that I would be like them one day!!

Well...nineteen years later and I still don't know how to play a guitar or surf. I'm six hundred miles from the closest beach and I no longer have a tan.  Life has a funny way of catching up with us.  Responsibilities kick in and bigger goals and ambitions take precedent.

It's bittersweet to look back for a moment...long enough to acknowledge the beautiful innocence of our childhood dreams.  Long enough to remember that it wasn't that long ago...