Can We Just Hurry Up
My partner in all things life is gone, and yes I know I said it last week. I want today to go by and this week to go by and this month to go by and then this 10 months to go by. I want all this time to just disappear so that I can get my partner back. Ok, I don’t really want to skip ahead 10 months, but I sort of do. Dreading these 10 months has left me open to the idea that I don’t actually want to erase this time. I have some amazing things to look forward to this year and I don’t want to spent my time drowning in sadness, wishing my time to disappear. I don’t want to come out on the other side the same person. I want each of my experiences to help shape the person I am, both the good and the bad.
So often when things get hard, I just want to skip ahead, jump to the part in life where things get easy again. I want to live my life in that future space where I have all the answers and my life is totally put together. But the reality is that most of us will probably never get there and so much of life is learning from our mistakes and making better versions of ourselves. If we could skip ahead, we won’t even know we were there because we missed most of life. There is a lot to be learned during the hard times and there are a lot of really fucking awesome things that happen to us when we open our eyes.
How often do we wish for today to be over, or we just can’t wait until next week. How often do we focus on a moment in time and pull ourselves away from the moments we are living. How often do we walk into the studio only to look forward to the moment we get to hug and walk out. How often do we diet or set nutritional goals, only to want instant results. Hard work is never easy and a lot of people search out the magic pill that will give them instant gratification. And the truth is, there is no magic pill. Most successes in life come from hard work and even harder times.
Lets transition straight into parenting. I was the best mom in the whole wide world before I ever had kids. I knew the answers to every parenting conundrum and was pretty judgmental about the failures I saw people making. Then I had kids and I have no idea what happened. My perfect parenting wasn’t working and I didn’t have perfect kids. I had post-partum depression, I had bad days, I had good days. I had days I cried and yelled, I had days I laughed and loved, and most days I had a little of both. There were many days I just wanted the clock to get to bedtime. I would wish the day away. Sometimes it helped, but most times a walk in the fresh air, deep breaths and a coincidental friend that always seemed to show up when I needed her most, made the time go by. It did not make the time disappear, but by walking straight through it, I had to experience the pain and the hardship and find my own way to bedtime.
Those times defined so much of who I became as a mother but more importantly as a person. I learned that dancing is great exercise and a great way to enjoy the moment. I learned that friends are usually just a phone call away. I learned that happiness can be created. As I look at my year ahead I don’t want to miss all these moments. I want to watch my little man play middle school basketball, I want to make birthday cakes and have dance parties. I want to go on dates with my partner and make out on the street corner.
What if we all started creating little pieces of happiness in our lives. What if we all started living those moments as they happen. Maybe it is reaching out to a friend you haven’t seen in a while, maybe it is going out to eat all by yourself, maybe it is leaving the laundry unfolded to play a game of charades with your minis. Life doesn’t usually get easier, we add things to our plates and create more work for ourselves. What if every workout you imagined you were a professional athlete, what if you become your own private chef and cooked a five course meal once a month. There is so much to be found in the spaces we want skip. Sometimes slowing down and creating more time can open us up to all the experiences we are ready for. I have no idea what is in store for me these next few months but I think there is some really good times I don’t want to miss out on.