Taking time to smell the roses

There's always something that has to be done, that needs to be done, that will not wait or else. But how much do those things really matter? Do you ever notice that we don't take enough time to just enjoy life? Maybe it's just me. I tend to be a worrier and a planner. I like to have everything neatly packaged, planned out, and second guessed. I have backup plans and backups to the backup plans. I know exactly what I'm going to be doing all day until I don't get it done. There is always so much to do, and I get caught up in the whirlwind of trying to make it happen.

Mostly, though, I worry. I worry about how to keep my house clean and my bills paid. About how to get to work on time and what I'm doing with my life. About how best to handle my cats and their craziness. About ... well ... insert pretty much anything (here). I like to think of it as planning, but probably half the time it's really just a cover for worrying. With all this planning (/worrying) it doesn't leave as much time for enjoying as I had thought being well planned out would leave.

Recently I have been reminded every morning as I drive into work that I need to slow down and just enjoy life. My day starts at 5am (ish) when I get up to get ready for work and for the day. I leave for work around 6:30 (ish) and until not too long ago most of my drive was in the dark or pre-dawn. However for the past week or so I have been regaled with an absolutely beautiful dawning of the day. In my rear-view mirror as I come around a particular bend a stunning red sun surrounded by clouds of fire and gold take my breath away. And I realize: I've been focusing too much on the little things. With all the beauty around me, why do I never see it? Why am I so intent on getting to work fast, or planning out how best to clean, or how best to pay off my bills that I cannot just sit down and enjoy the flowers or sitting on the grass with my daughter? Granted that things like paying bills, feeding your family, etc are all important things, but they should not take up your entire day. That way only leads to stress and discontent. One of these days I want to just sit and watch the sun come up. The entire way. Then I think I'll play outside with my daughter for a while & make a picnic for us to take to a park with Daddy.

"Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" - Matthew 6:26 (NIV)

Life - it's one of those things!

Life is one of those things you never see coming until it hits you. One moment you're playing in the park in front of your house, designing a super gymnastics course complete with hurdles (aka park benches) and more; the next you're cutting coupons and hoping you can get up the energy to fold your laundry tonight.

When did this happen? Each day seems to take forever to pass, and yet months go by without my noticing. How is our perception of time so flexible that minutes can take forever and yet years fly by? Is the human brain not big enough to handle the passage of time, and thus it cuts off portions? Does it ignore all the "boring" parts and boil a year down to the interesting? If that were so, what does it say about our lives, that we forget so much of our day to day?

When I was young, anything seemed possible. Everything seemed possible. We were traveling constantly and I knew that for the rest of my life I'd be traveling and making new friends. Towards the end of college I agonized over what to do with my life "after." One of the many plans I had was to join the service or the CIA. Either would let me travel, see new places, have an interesting life. Almost ten years later I find myself settled down (a think I never thought I would do) in a house with a child doing mundane things like dishes, and laundry, and coupons, and yard work. Not to say that this is boring - I actually quite enjoy my life overall - but this is in no way the fantastically exciting life I'd pictured when I was younger.

The funny thing is that while I sometimes sit back and wish I could go back to being single for a couple years to do all the traveling and cool things I hear others doing, I find myself too attached to this "settled"  life I'm in. Somehow, the joyous "mommy!" I get every time I pick my daughter up from her sitter's has become so much more important than even a visit back to South America (which I would love to take). The thought of hearing that in chorus makes me briefly forget that I've ever wanted anything else.

It hit me as well recently that throughout my life I've usually been the youngest of my group of friends. Now, however, find myself being one of the older friends in the groups. In some cases that's good - who thinks I'm an old fogy? No one! I find that I still identify with the early 20s crowd and not so much with the early/mid 30s group. Maybe it's a part of that time that my brain chopped off. Maybe I am just in denial. Or maybe it is as simple as this: I live in Never-Never land and while Wendy is off growing up, I'm staying young.

I am expecting any day to blink and find out that I'm 40 with a teenager (Lord have mercy!). I hope that I won't look back then and think that these were my "exciting" years. I hope that I can remember these years - that my brain does not decide to chop them off. My 40 year old self will probably laugh at my 30 year old self for thinking that this is life "hitting me." My 50 year old self will be laughing while remembering PTA and after-school events. My 60 year old self will probably laugh at all of us, shake her head, and say "They never saw this coming!" Yes indeed, life is just one of those things!