Last night while I was waiting at the deli counter at the grocery store, I received the image above with this text from a friend:
. . . Now to put away all of these ???? clothes. Thinking about setting them on fire and everyone goes naked. ???????????? I’m always ten steps behind. Lord help me. ???????? . . .
I busted out laughing right there.
Then a few minutes later, I’m looking down at chicken in the cooler, when I feel a hand on my back and hear a very familiar voice say, “No way, this is how we’re going to see each other.” It was one of my very closest friends. We’d been texting the day before trying to find time to see each other. . . to no avail. So we literally spent ten minutes talking, right in the middle of Sunday night rush hour at the grocery store.
We promised to find a time to get together.
As I finished my shopping I kept thinking, it really shouldn’t be this hard. We shouldn’t feel like we’re literally running from one thing to the next in an effort to get it all done. We’re running from practice, to work, to class, to carline, to the grocery. There’s barely a minute to catch our breath before we fall back in bed and do it all over again.
Much less time to get to sit around and enjoy the people we love.
The common rationale is “It’s just this stage of life. You’ll get through it, but don’t blink or it will be gone.” (But dear heavens, I need a nap.)
I don’t want to just get through it.
I’ve thought about that a lot. I’ve talked about it a lot with my kids too. The reason their grandparents have more freedom in their lives is that they worked really hard and saved up their money while they were raising us. Now, while they’re older, they get to rest a little bit more.
In some ways that makes sense, and in others, it seems so backwards.
Then yesterday I was reminded again, in an even more profound way, how much we need each other. How quickly life can be gone. How quickly everything we’ve been building can fall apart.
All we have left is each other.
And that’s really all we needed all along.
Don’t wait until you’re older to have time to enjoy your family, your friends and your life. I want to be more intentional about spending my life with the people I love, right now.
Don’t you?
Let the laundry pile up.
Or even better, fold it together.
To more love,
Crystal
