Since we live 150 miles away from most members of our family, we do not seem them all that often. Probably five times a year, tops. We try to text and email to stay in touch since we do not see them but the fact remains - we just don't see our family that much.
As I studied my aunts, uncles, cousins, and other family this Christmas, I realized that they tend to change between holidays. Hair styles change, weight comes and goes, and wrinkles might be more or less evident one year. I'm not sure why it required a Christmas Eve celebration in my uncle's basement rec room, but I realized that everyone is a sum of their daily choices. The hair/weight/wrinkle changes I notice from year to year happen in the day-to-day lives they lead. Maybe they decide to go gray and stop coloring their hair. Maybe they opt for salads instead of bacon to drop a few pounds. Maybe they stop indoor tanning and no longer look like leather.
Whatever the case, life happens in those little decisions.
I see it in myself, too. Particularly in pictures, I notice my own superficial changes in hair, weight, and wrinkles from year to year. While I might look fabulous one year as compared to another, it took a lot of sacrifice and styling. While I might look frumpy and bloated, it took a lot of long days and lack of attention to proper diet, exercise, or rest to get there.
Regardless, I'm on my own journey and the destination is the journey itself. The whole point of this life is to keep moving, keep growing, keep becoming who you are really meant to be.
But those daily choices matter. We make 1,000 little decisions each day and they all matter. They all add up to something. And it's not just the choices that lead to our physical appearance - the choices that craft and polish our inner-most heart and soul matter, too. Each choice adds to or detracts from our character.
I will pay attention to the small choices I make each day. They all count and they all matter.
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