Not Quite What I Remember

So let me start with a confession.  

I am just a big kid.  

When I was a kid, my favorite cereal in the world was Franken Berry.  (For those unaware, it is a strawberry flavored cereal with marshmallows).  It was sad that it only came out during the Halloween season.  

For the past several years, I have seen it in stores during October, and often thought about buying some to revive old taste buds.  

This year, I finally broke.  I bought some to have for dessert at night.  And the other night, I excitedly got a bowl, and sat down to enjoy my special treat.  

It was not quite what I remember.  In fact, it was nothing like I remember.  Well, okay...it was still strawberry flavor.  

The marshmallows were okay.  But the cereal itself was something on the South end of disappointing.  I suppose it was better than dog food might be (although, when I was a kid, I kind of liked a product called "Doggy Donuts).  But I digress.  

I found myself just working to finish the bowl.  

How sad.  

Something I remember as being so wonderful just wasn't all that good.  Was it that I had lower standards back then?  Did they change the formula over the years?  Or have foods become so much sweeter through the years that what was sweet back then is like cardboard now?

I hear people talking about how awesome it was when they were in high school.  Bruce Springsteen sings about "Glory Days".  I think about what it would be like to go back, knowing what I know now. Yes, there are things I would change.  I'm over 50 now, but I wouldn't go back to my teenage years for anything.  

How much time is lost, longing for what was?  How can we enjoy life if we are too busy missing what we no longer have?  

When I was a kid, I didn't have a truck payment.  I lived at home, rent free.  I didn't have electric bills, or water bills.  I didn't have to go to work every single day.  I got to sleep in on the weekends until noon if I wanted to.  Friday and Saturday nights were spent at the arcade, and riding go karts, and whatever else we felt like doing.  

Now, I get up at 4 to 6 AM, and work ten to twelve hours a day.  Friday and Saturday nights are spent at home, looking through work for the next day.  Maybe taking the evening off, and watching TV.  I can't not work because I have a huge house payment, a truck payment, electric bills, water bills, insurance bills, cable bills, etc.  I have a wife, a mother-in-law, and three dogs living in the house.  There is seldom time to just sit and do nothing.

But in the last few years, God has shown me how to be thankful for things I always saw as negatives.

I'm thankful for a huge house payment because that means I have a nice home to come home to every evening.  Some people live in a cardboard box (or worse).

I'm thankful for a huge electric bill because it means I have heat and AC, and lights.  Some people freeze in winter, and swelter in summer because they don't have electricity.

I'm thankful to "have to" get up early every morning because it means I have a job to go to.  I have spent months looking through ads, trying to make ends meet on unemployment.  And I have the physical ability to go to work every day.  How many people are suffering from a disease, and would love nothing more than to be able to work?

I choose to be thankful for what I have now.  And I choose to not wish I could have what I thought was so good.

Wherever you are, and whatever is going on in your life now, choose to be thankful.  Thankful for what you have.  (If you are reading this, you have internet and access to a computer).  And you have eyes that can see, a brain that can comprehend, and the ability to read.  

It could be so much worse.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with an almost full box of Franken Berry.