Time

"Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...into the future." This is a line from the song FLY LIKE AN EAGLE from the Steve Miller Band. It just kind of came into my head as I was sitting here thinking about time. My daughter is playing and I look at her and think, "where did the time go?". My son just turned 7 and we're already thinking about 2nd grade next year. When did that happen? My project of late has been transfering my mini-DV home movies to DVD so I have been watching a lot of time slipping away. Vacations come and gone, sweet little 2 year old voices are now 7, my once baby girl will be in pre-K next fall! Time flies and yet we don't seem to notice the subtle changes. Sometimes I find myself so focused on what's happening next that I forget about what's happening right now. I live for the next hour or the next day or the next weekend and I really can't wait for summer vacation. But what's happening in this moment? My children are precious. They make us laugh every day. We like them just as they are right now. We don't want them to get older...and yet, we do! We are supposed to grow. God made us that way. We teach the children so they can become educated adults. We make memories so we can have memories. We get mad when our time gets wasted. We hurry from one thing to the other. In December I can't wait for the snow, but by the time February is here I can't wait for the spring. I want to feel satisfied with right now. I want to appreciate the spring flowers. I need to notice the blossoming trees and the leaves that are about to burst out because by July I will have stopped noticing the leaves at all until October when they're about to fall off.

Today is not a means to an end. I shouldn't be making it through today so I can get to tomorrow. Just because tomorrow brings me one step closer to vacation doesn't mean I shouldn't appreciate today. So what's the point of realizing that time is slipping away and we're too busy to notice? Well, I guess I'm reminded to be thankful for every day, every moment spent with my husband & my children. I could intentionally notice the small things, like the flowers on my pink dogwood that are about to open and the smell of hyacinth in the air, and that my kids are growing and changing before my eyes. I could probably do a better job of making today meaningful in some way for myself, for my husband, for my kids, for a stranger. I could be excited for right now instead of for what's going to happen tomorrow. So time keeps on slipping into the future and I'm going to try to enjoy every minute of it!