legacies and things of that sort

i feel different. i don't mean today i feel different....i mean, maybe i just noticed it today, but i feel different from the girl i was 24 days ago. i feel more serious. i feel less dramatic. i feel like i've suddenly been transformed into this down-to-business, no-nonsense, live real all the time kinda woman. what's the point in being scared, or afraid, or timid?
i've always been driven, my whole life, by making sure people like me. and when i got too close to someone, i started to feel uncomfortable, because once they really knew me...i mean reeeally knew me, they probably wouldn't like me anymore for all my short-comings. but now....it just all seems so pointless. i want to be a likable person, because perhaps that's a Godly quality...being lovable in a way that makes showing God's love more honest. but beyond loving people with all my heart and living like Jesus, it's really not my responsibility to ensure people love me, is it?
death makes you think about those kinds of things. or at least, it's made me think about these things in a much more serious, significant way. life is so extremely short. and more than anything in this world, i long to leave the kind of legacy my dad left. i guarantee in another two or ten years no one will remember that he once fixed their car or their toilet. or anyway, they won't remember those actions as much as they'll remember that he was a kind-hearted, generous man who would give up anything to lend a hand, in the middle of the night, or the middle of the day, for no pay, and with a smile. well, okay, maybe he wouldn't always smile about it, but if he grumbled at all, it was in a way that made you feel like he wasn't really upset at all that he was spending his afternoon or his sleeping hours relighting your water heater's pilot light.
his legacy doesn't make him famous, and it doesn't even make his life meaningful. and that's not what i'm looking for after my death, either. but i do hope that my life means something to someone out there. that some person felt loved and care for because their life somehow intertwined with mine. obviously my life is going to be changed because my dad died. obviously things will never "go back to normal" and will never be the same as they were just a month ago. i don't expect or desire them to, because i am a changed woman, and the woman i'm growing into by the hour has a brand new respect for things like the big picture and what life, as short as sometimes it may be, is really about.