Longing for the past

Today I have been remembering another time in my life, when my girls were little and we lived in the lowcountry of SC, in a place called Beaufort...last night a movie was on TV called "The Water is Wide" and it took place in an area close to Beaufort. When I lived there, there was an old lady who used to say "Once you get the sand of Beaufort between your toes, you'll come back"...It has been 13 years since we left there....Laura Grace was a baby and Alana was getting ready to start kindergarten...WHERE has the time gone? Now they are young ladies and we have a 6 year old! There is so much about timing in life that I don't understand, and probably never will. I am thankful for the journey we have been on so far, and thankful for where I am now, but there are days when I wish I could jump in a time machine and go back and just relive some of the great moments in my life in the places where we have lived, and this was one of those days. This weekend one of my former youth from Beaufort asked me to do her wedding in October...even though we move, we still can stay connected with others. Even when our relationships change we can still be available and be there for people who have touched our lives and vice versa. I think some of what I am feeling has to do with going through THE SENIOR YEAR....where is that little girl that used to jump in my lap and brought joy to everyone who met her...she still around, doing the same thing (except NOT jumping in my lap, her little sister Jillian STILL does that, thank goodness)...I think she still bring joy to those she meets...when Alana was a little girl in Beaufort and we would introduce her to people they would almost always say "What a beautiful name"...it is that, and it means "bright, beautiful, and fair" in case you ever wondered...that's why we named her what we did.....oh, the Beaufort days, the bugs, the sun, running to the beach for the afternoon, my first trip to Waterbury, CT, great kids, fun times...I have to remember something that a man here in Lexington says..."The best is yet to come."...I'm not real sure about that now, because I've some great times in the past...but we can't live there, we have to move on, and live with the memories. As I used to tell the kids in Beaufort all the time "you can never go back"...and that's true, you never can.