Carpe Diem!

Last Friday night WL and I went out to eat with Emory, our two year old.  During the fifteen minute drive it took us to get from our house to the resturuant of choice that night I rattled on about somethings I wanted to do in the next little while.  For example, a friend of mine had given me her murder myster dinner party game to look over and get it together for us to host, at some point.  I talked about that, and a few more things I just have to do.  I wasn't paying much attention, just talking.  Not too long after we sat down to eat, WL looked at me and asked if I realized that in the last twenty minutes I had planned three parties and a bathroom remodel.  Well, no I had not realized it had added up that quickly.  But that is how I think.  I was not at all concentrated on our dinner out, or what was going on around me.   I was, and am, constantly thinking about the next thing.  I don't know how to live in the moment, so to speak.  To slow down and appreciate, and more importantly, be content with what's around me.

My children are growing up so quickly.  I can't believe Emory turned two this year, and Jacob will start 1st grade, 1ST GRADE!!!  How did that happen?  How much have I missed worried about what is coming next.  How many nights have I wasted worried so much about bathtimes and bedtimes and what's for dinner and what's going on tomorrow that I have not made time to make precious memories of the here and now?  I don't want to be sitting at a computer 12 years from now crying over that fact that my son is going off to college and asking myself "where did the time go?"!  I want to learn to appreciate today, this hour, this minute.   

Don't get me wrong, I still want to have my parties and paint my guest bathroom, and about a dozen other things around the house.  Sit with me for five minutes and I will tell you all about it.  But I'm going to stop letting it consume me.  Those things will all come, at least the important ones.  And when they do, I hope I can take the time to really enjoy them as they are happening.

I'm going to leave you with the little quote that, along with WL's comment at dinner, really got me to thinking about this...

"The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make...
I did not live in the moment enough.  This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.  There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one.  And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, dn how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.  I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed.  I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less"  ~ Anna Quindlen (Loud and Clear [2004], 10-11).

Mitsy