I can't wait...

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Now that the school year has concluded, my schedule is wide open.  Noticing throughout the year that my body was rebelling against my 7 day/week work schedule, forced me to take a look at taking some time off this summer.  I used to wish for this time and I must admit, it has been challenging to slow down and just relax, but I am getting there and it feels great.  

I was sitting at the beach yesterday, waiting for a friend.  I was remembering the days of juggling sand buckets, coolers, snacks, shovels, towels, beach blankets, strollers, and kids moving in ten different directions while trying to lather them up in sandy sun screen.  It would take 3 hours to pack to go to the beach and on a good day we would be there for maybe just as long before out of pure exhaustion of not sitting for a second, I would just begin to pack up.  I remember thinking, “I can’t wait until they’re all big enough to take themselves to the beach.”  Wish granted!  In the past couple weeks, I’ve been able to sit at the beach several times totally alone and read my book in between watching other people's children play.  But as I sat there yesterday watching other children running in and out of the water playing, for a moment, my heart wished, I could’ve appreciated that time a little more. I remembered how much fun it was to watch them play but it was over now, those days long gone. My older children, now teenagers, no where close to sharing the same beach area, on the off chance they should encounter the humiliation of seeing their mother. I don’t like it, but remember feeling the same way at their ages, so I give them their space.  

Almost simultaneously, I heard a young pre teen girl walking by saying to her friend, “I can’t wait until I’m 18 and...” I could not hear the rest of the conversation but I knew that girl.  That was me at almost every moment of my life, “I can’t wait until...,” as I slowly wished my life away moment by moment and not being fully present or appreciative of the moments I was given even when they had become the moments I wished for and couldn’t wait for.  

I think sometimes, I still do it, “I can’t wait until...” But now, I try to catch myself and know that something about now, I will miss when until happens.  As I relax into summer, I hope to practice myself into an awareness of now as opposed to being so focused on what is coming.  When I grow impatient and begin wishing my moments away, I want to practice stopping myself and just appreciating all that I enjoy now and remind myself, I will miss this soon enough.   I want for my heart to know it is free to love, to laugh, to live each of these moments and that today, I am exactly where, who, and how I am supposed to be.  It really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks I need in my life or where my life should be going, because the truth is, I’m good - I got this! Everything is working out for me. It always is.  I don’t need I can’t waits because it all just is and that is so much easier and fun than wishing my life away.        

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