Slow and steady

People always look at my little boys and reflect on how big  they have gotten and exclaim the time goes "so quick " . Then they  will follow that up with a comment something like "someday you too will look back and wonder where the time went." I am so depressed by the thought that I have to think there is a better way that doesn't let time just slip away unnoticed.

I was told I would harldy remember our wedding day or my children's birth but it is not true. These moments are imbedded so deep in my remembery that I not only remember the details of the events but I also remember thoughts and feelings. In all their experience and wisdom there IS something they have missed. Our life is a journey and in that journey is story after story. My Grandmother new it and she remembered her stories in such fine detail should could have written a memoir from the homesteader's account.

Time is slow and steady. It is however, always moving forward. It is too easy to let it slip away unnoticed and I am thankful that many perfect strangers have alerted me to that ease.  It is this knowing that helps me stop, pause, and take notice of the many small minutes that give me the totality of time where I am now, a mother to a six year old and three year old who are as young as they will every be right now. In our now increasingly busied-on-the-go-society it becomes more challenging to pause. I must defend against invaders so I am not overtaken by "shoulds" and before I know it saying "oh it goes by so fast". My defense is to block out "noise" and prioritize the musts and limit the shoulds.

I didn't grow from my Grandpa's little Tara to grown-up-mom- career- wife-Tara overnight. Nor have my boys been birthed, nurtured from babies to school-aged children overnight. If we fill our lives with so much busy and too much on-the-go we don't have time to pause and take the journey until ....puff everyone is grown up. I remind myslef to pause, soak it all in and note each small victory, milestone, or conversation. What did I do today? I slowed down the morning rush so we could all watch the garbage truck. We all met the garbage man, Mario, and learned that he worked for Clif Bar some 18 years ago and knows many of the old-timers there. I encourage everyone to slow down just for a second and meet their garbage man!

With that, we are going camping this weekend to isolate from musts and shoulds and just be.