Some people

"Some people come into our lives and quicky go.  Others stay a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never, ever the same."  --Ralph Waldo Emmerson

I have been thinking a lot about Katie in the past few weeks.  I often wonder what would have come of me if I hadn't met her.  Katie was a joy and a wonder to behold.  I met Katie my senior year in high school in Germany.  I was living there as a student and she had moved with her parents because her dad was an executive with Proctor and Gamble.  When I first met her the thing that I remember most is that when she smiled she smiled so big that it was a wonder she could see.  Her cheeks would be pushed so high up on her face by that enormous smile that it would force her eyes closed.  She was full of life and exuberance and light.  She was indellibly good.

I was not.  I was a rebellious teenager, constantly battling against the over protective restraint of my parents strict yoke of religion and appearance.  I had been raised in a very sheltered home.  My parents presented a view of the world that simply wasn't to be found when actually out in it.  The idea that people were polite and proper; that kids respected their elders and understood tradition, honor and charity; that I was a normal kid just like everyone else... I found that these things just were not true to what I was taught.  I was only 10 or 11 when I began to realize that their portrayal of the "Way things are" was so far from real that they lost all credibility with me and I decided that I would no longer listen to their opinions or advice.

Now, it seems to me in hind sight that there always seem to be a handful of people who come in contact with you and interact with elements of your life and begin to affect it.  Katie was one of those people.  I loved Katie dearly and realized that I needed to earn her love and respect.  She deserved better than I was then able to offer her.  I began to become the young man I always had the potential to be.

There are others like Katie.  There was Andrea before her who inspired in me a desire to care for her more than I had for myself.  Though she was not my first girlfriend, she was my first powerful love.  Before I ever came to Germany there was Candice.  I was falling in with the wrong crowd and started getting into trouble, but Candice was able to be part of the "A" crowd and still maintain her values.  She taught me a lot about myself even though we never dated or even really hung out, she was still an example to me.  Before her was Erin who always found the good in me and was able to draw it out of me, even when we were kids. There are more that can be added after Katie, too.  There were Aubrey and Chris in college who inspired me to go and serve a church service mission.  Then there was Camille...  I will write more about her later, perhaps.  Then there was Sarah.

Sarah was different from the others who had come into my life before her.  First of all, I met Sarah after the end of my nearly decade long marriage.  For the first time in quite a long time I realized in Sarah someone who I could care for deeply, even though nothing ever came of it.  But the funny thing is that it didn't matter.  You see, before with each of the people who were put in my path to inspire me I found myself trying to be a better man for their sake.  To make them proud of me or to win their aproval, affection or both.  Sarah inspired me to improve me for ME.  Before I would make an attempt at self-improvement for their sake and, as with many external motivations, I would find myself reverting back to my baser self because my motivation was external and not internal.  Sarah inspired in me the ability to catch a glimpse of what kind of man I could be were I to change myself from the inside-out; who I would be if i were to realize my "Personal Legend."

I will always be grateful for the people God has put into my life to remind me of my potential and inspire excellence.  I think of Katie on occasion and wonder what the absence of her influence, affection and love would meant to me in such a precarious position as I was in before I met her.  She has since moved on to inspire others including her husband and children, but I will never forget her and the influence she has had on my life.  Nor will I forget the others like Katie who have affected me in some way.