Well it's true. I can't seem to find time to just sit still and breathe lately. The minutes, hours, days and months are flying by me like cars on JTB (you have to live in Jacksonville to get that reference). I received a calender for Christmas where you tear the page out each day and I find myself ripping out entire chunks of time. A day or two here. A week sometimes. There goes April. Ooh almost halfway through May. How can I make the time seem more real? More tangible?
Normally I mark my weeks by counting days until the weekend arrives. Doesn't everyone? Then when Friday night comes, I begin to scurry around the house, trying to accomplish tasks. These tasks are not small ones. They feel like overwhelming "we need to clean out the closets and donate all of our junk to the Humane Society" kind of tasks. I pounce into the project with gusto, only to find myself bowing out about halfway through Saturday morning. Then it sits until the next weekend. Back into the boxes and closet things go to sit another few months, a year and so on. Maybe chores and household obligations isn't the best way to mark time.
I wonder if I can mark the time by events. You know, the fun bits of life that don't feel like work? The first thing that comes to mind is visiting my brother in Denver over July 4th weekend. Ah yes. That will be here in no time. Then it occured to me that I'll see my family in Cincinnati in September. These feel like big events in my hum drum life. So why will it feel like a flash before the trips are here...and then gone. What can I really look forward to when it's here and then gone?
In graduate school, we learned about mindfulness and how you can live more in the present moment. I ought to dust my schoolbooks off in the overwhelming closet and see what happens. Have we lost the fine art of enjoying the moment? Do you find yourself waiting for that next "thing" in your life, only to miss out on the present?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Just leave me a comment below.
Staying in the moment, for the moment.
Christy
