It's a farce really...this whole "stay in the moment and it won't pass you by" movement.
It's passed and is passing me by.
The girl. The big one. She's just that: Big.
I'm frightened by it. Reminded that my time is running out. I actually shuddered about it today.
Shuddered.
When I breathed her in after picking up a bigger, more self attuned, more *shudder mature girl at camp...I shuddered.
She didn't see and I didn't breathe a word because kids are like dogs don't you know...they smell anxiety and fear...so I kept sipping my Starbucks really coolly...
But. I shuddered.
I looked at the long limbs sprawled sleeping in the passenger seat and I swear if she would have asked for an albino west Parisian Rhino I would have moved Heaven and Europe to get it for her.
I find aging to be enthralling. Liberating. Exciting. Scary as hell.
Because as my children grow...I'm faced with the age old adage that I'm indeed growing with them. I'm faced with the indisputable fact that while I am quite the worker towards goals, it is only true and fair that I recognize there will be some that I'll never have the time to meet.
For a go getter...that's scary.
I have a petulant persistent fear that my very best of comrades know about: I'm afraid of ending up in a boring, sameness life.
Aging into the crazy cat lady that never reaches other lands and never holds hands and never looks upon anything other than her yard and library books.
However, It struck me today that I'll probably be so dang busy living that I'll look up and be on my way to Jesus before I figure out my life is over.
I certainly hope so.
I stay reminded that life is what we make it. Life is what we focus on.
Life is finitely impossible to predict, plan or make promises to...We must follow it's lead but certainly are invited to dance along.
Waltzing away, as Mary Oliver so eloquently puts it, "A bride married to amazement"...
Realizing we're never quite in control...but we're also never alone. That's the beauty of the dance.
Forever intertwined, we waltz with our finiteness...with our fallibility...with our eternal selves...
This. This is what makes the waltz of life so incredibly appealing. If the music never died would we appreciate it? If the leader never threatened to end the dance and choose another partner, would we realize how wonderful the steps He floats and dips us through truly are?
I think not.
I choose to believe it's the beautiful slow let down of life that makes it most beautiful. The knowing that we're all headed for a supreme destination and our bodies will all ultimately forsake us.
(Even the really toned, tanned ones. I digress.)
Because it's in the moments where I feel a tug of nostalgia, that I am reminded to savor the moments of life. To listen a little closer to my Daddy's words...to hug my mom before I leave...to call my brother back and listen to his laugh...to cry in sweet communion with my best friend over depths shared while 5 children come undone behind us...to remember her in THIS moment at THIS height and THIS gangly age...
THESE moments...THESE snapshots will be the encapsulation of my existence on this planet...THIS is what I will have fought for...worked for...dreamed after...and I want to remember...I want it to be worth it...I want it all to have mattered...if only to me and one long limbed growing girl and her beautiful dirty sidekick of a sis...
That could never be boring and sameness. Boom. Take that life.
Grace n Peace,
A ~
