Hamilton and Spring Cleaning

My name is Jody Neeley.  I am a wife and a mother to four kiddo's, own a CNA company and have a BSN where I work as a registered nurse on a chronically ill pediatric floor.  That is my story.  That is my story on the outside and what I can sum myself up to in a few lines.  However, I have been thinking so much more lately about Who am I really and what kind of legacy do I leave behind?  I know this is a bit deep, but hear me out.  

When I told Jessica I would guest narrate I had just been given an edited version of the music to the Broadway Musical, Hamilton.  I turned it on and I was deeply immersed in it immediately and fell in love with the lyrics, the story and the quick wit and skill of the talented cast and the writer, Lin-Manuel Miranda.  When Jessica told me she wanted me to focus on Spring Cleaning I immediately knew I had to somehow tie in my new found geeky love of this musical.  So, how does Spring Cleaning tie into a Broadway Musical?  
Keep reading to find out! 😉

One of my goals this year was to spend more time spending time with what matters most.  I believe we all have a plethora of time wasters at our disposal.  Take a moment and think of your typical day.  What do you spend most of your time doing?  Think for a moment about how tweaking a few things could really help you hone back to something that has a deeper meaning to you.  Maybe it is taking time to further develop a talent, maybe it is spending more time in nature, or with those you love, writing in a journal or a blog, photography.  When you are with those you love taking a few moments to focus on really being there for them.  For a friend, a spouse, a child, a parent etc.  Really finding out who you are.   I know for me I definitely want to instill some important life lessons into my children. Having this view this year really has helped me to take time to "smell the roses" and prioritize my time better.  There is always time for what matters most and by getting rid of some of those time wasters in my life I have found this.  During my Spring Cleaning of getting rid of more time wasters in my schedule I have definitely found the time to do more of what I love and what in the big picture is more important To me.

So, as you contemplate that, what is a Legacy?  A definition I found states that it is "a record or account of what an individual achieved during their life, career or role in public office".  

You have probably heard about "the dash".  The dash on your headstone, between your date of birth and date of death.  So much is accomplished in the "dash".  What are you accomplishing in yours?

Let's get back to Hamilton.  
As the play ends it asks the audience directly, “Who tells your story?”

Here is a brief synopsis of the end of the play that I found online to help paint a better picture. Hamilton is a Broadway Musical set back in the time of America first becoming to be and is historically based and true.   I would invite you all to listen and join in on one of my newfound favorites.  

Hamilton the man and Hamilton the musical are both concerned with historiography and legacy—how we view, understand, and remember the past. As Aaron Burr notes in “The World was Wide Enough,” “History obliterates in every picture it paints.” You have no control over who tells your story, and after death, your story is all that’s left. What’s left other than the memories we helped make before we exited the stage? What is our ultimate legacy beyond the things we create and the words we leave behind?

Is it any wonder then that Hamilton would write like he was running out of time? 
He was. 
So are we all.

Some closing thoughts:

For two centuries, Hamilton’s role as a Founding Father has been clouded in obscurity by many factors: his dying early and in a sensational way, his awkward social position as an immigrant outsider to the Colonies, his political enemies outliving him and purposefully minimizing his work, the fact that his work is so dense and complex as to be unintelligible to the layman. However, time proved him right, and history has come to appreciate him more and more as we continue to feel the effects and, in turn, rediscover the details of his life and work.

This would not have been possible without his wife, Eliza’s careful curation of his legacy. However, even as she ensured Hamilton was not totally forgotten, much of the detail about her herself has been lost due to her own marginalized place in the historical fabric, as a woman. Yes, in the play, Eliza burns her letters, and Chernow believes she destroyed them. But the truth is, for some unknown reason, we have very little of Eliza’s personal writing, and for decades upon decades, no one lamented her missing voice. It’s only very recently that scholarship has begun to take an active and rigorous interest in the lives and significance of historical women.

However, Hamilton fought to make his contributions to America, and Eliza worked tirelessly to make her own in her turn, and as time has gone on, the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice, people who went into the annals of history looking for traces of themselves where their people had previously been purposefully overlooked, have found themselves in finding people like the Hamiltons again, in writing books about them, creating plays like this about them, and thus, writing themselves and their antecedents back into the narrative of history.

Hamilton tells us that you have to do your best to tell your story, and then you have to find a way to let go, and let time take care of the rest.

I love that.  Tell your story, find a way to let it go and let time take care of the rest.  What will your story be?  Who will tell it for you and how can you now take an active roll in creating your legacy?  Surely Spring cleaning a few time wasters will be worth it in the end on your way to becoming what you envision yourself to be.  I have found so many tips on time management online.  Some of my favorites are coming up with a schedule and making goals.  My sister Jenny has recently started journaling her day with bullet journal.  Look it up on Pinterest. Great way to manage a day and also a wonderful way to journal and have as a keep sake.  This is something I am wanting to do.  I find that with lists I can better accomplish my goals.  In order to accomplish goals you first have to create them.  Spring is a perfect time for new birth and new goals and some light cleaning of what is not necessary in our lives.  Because, even though it may sound crazy to be thinking about leaving a legacy when we die - it is the only way to work toward what we want to be by "cleaning up" the moments of today.  There is no time like the present.



Hamilton Music