Reclaiming pieces of you

Ever notice how there are times in every day where someone or some situation from your past creeps forward from the depths of your memory, giving you a gift, or a lesson from that previous moment in time? We are the sum of the parts of our previous experiences and people whose paths have crossed ours and left more than an impression. They have left pieces of them, in each of us.

Some call it deja vu.

I think it's more about the grand connections we all have. I am made up of pieces of those who have left their impressions on me. Good and bad.

Some call it genetics. Like the time I was a 9 year old (I think, not exactly sure of my age) and I was walking down the dusty street in front of my grandmother's house in the small town where my father was raised. An older man walking along the same street approached me and said, "You are Milan Slavik's daughter aren't you? You look just like him. You walk just like him". My dad died when I was a small child so that was a moving moment in my life, one of many similar ones I have had since. That man was referring to the physical pieces of me that came from my father. They are very real.

But there are those other pieces of each of us that have come from others whose lives we have shared. Think about it. Those formative years, or those middle aged crisis years when it feels like you are re-defining who you are. Let's face it, we are social beings and we constantly take from and give to each other.

I just love that. I will be a better person because there are pieces of me from so many incredible sources.

What are your interests? Your gifts? Your loves? Your pet peeves? All developed over time as you relate to the world and the people who share it with you. That's what I am talking about - reclaiming those precious pieces of you.