moments

the other day i had a moment.  i was sitting in the living room in the late afternoon, feeling kind of bored and mildly dissatisfied. it was really hot and there were legos all over the floor, and plastic bullets and all the things i wanted or needed to do required too much effort.  i was in the mood to eat chocolate chip cookies but not to make them; i needed to think about dinner, but didn't want to get up and look in the fridge.  so i sat there in that chair and stared out the window at our yard that i noticed was filled with trash- or junk- that our kids have collected for their little community store game that has been going on all week.

then i had an ah-hah moment. i realized that things are pretty darn good, in fact, they're fabulous.  outside i could hear my kids playing- no one is sick.  no one is starving, no one is hiding under their desk. 

i thought about how quickly life can change.  how in one second, someone could be hit by a car, get a diagnosis, become excessively and incapacitatingly anxious.  i thought about how i could be sitting in that living room stressing, or crying or worrying, or missing someone so much that i would give anything to have one more minute of listening to them laugh outside, that i would get up and do anything to smell their little kid head again, to step on a lego, to look at their yard junk.  and i thought, how dare i take this for granted?  how dare i not sit here fully satisfied and so so thankful?

because i've been in some of those moments.  i've sat on the couch and cried about someones anxiety.  i've sat on the couch and cried as i nursed my baby after getting his bad diagnosis, wondering how it could possibly feel any worse than i felt in that moment, but knowing that the grieving would be worse when he wasn't there for me to hold while i cried.  and i know that those moments will come again. 

i want to enjoy the now of it- now.  lego pieces and plastic bullets and yard trash.  i want to enjoy the laughing that turns into yelling that turns into crying- because it's here and it's alive, and not everyone has that, and if it were gone i'd miss it like nothing else.

so i began to savor the normalcy- the routine- the hum-drum- the 'dinner, call the kids in, wash-the-hands, sit at the table, napkins in the lap, who's turn is it to say the prayer-ness' of my evening.  i began to laugh at how many times i had to tell people to stop talking with their mouth full of food. 

because my kids are here- they are happy- they have food to eat- and things to say that are so important that they can't wait until they swallow their mouthful. and that is all good.