Hard to believe September is almost over! Still waiting for fall to arrive amongst the heat wave here. I am readt for crisp mornings and cozy nights, colors to drape the trees in their tapestry, sleeping with the window open cool air rushing in whilst buried under covers experiencing the best sleep ever.
I should be grocery shopping and meal planning, but instead I sit at a local lake listening to the ducks carry on, the breeze tickling my skin and the lake rippling under the sun. Do you ever sometimes realize in life that you haven’t truly relaxed enough? Feeling the pressure of work, family, life pushing you like an unseen monster chasing you in your dreams. You watch other families and wonder why you didn’t relax more? Why it was so important to keep everything on a schedule? That maybe nothing bad happened that the house wasn’t perfect or that you had pressure to keep everything going? There are moments now I feel like I relax. I feel the weight of the world leave and I can truly take a deep breath. Then I get aggravated for all the breaths I missed during my kids growing up and aggravated that curcumstances that weren’t my choosing made me even more responsible than I ever was before. Then I worry my kids don’t take enough moments to feel the weight lifted and feel that breath. I am so thankful for my kids, worried I was a good enough mom and still worry about that. That sometimes I was just so tired that I had to sleep instead of things they wanted to do. I look at these young famiiies and I want to tell them forget about going home for laundry or watching a football game, take that deep breath and relax. Don’t worry about others judgements or staying anxious all the time. Breathe in that sunshine, the smell of fresh air on the skin of your kids, the wind tearing apart your hairstyle. Stop and really breathe in a moment. These moments go so quickly. And I take a breath.
Then in my weird thought process, I see me 15 years down the road, probably still sitting at this bench on my own. Having uber take me for my colonoacopy and Walmart delivering me my groceries. And I worry that I sometimes stay so lost in my thoughts and that I am okay to be alone yet yearn for something more. I guess we all do. Time takes no hostages and we are blessed with every moment in time and every breath we breathe. Maybe on those moments that really deep breath happens and the expectations of the world fade, that we find moments of blessings and moments to be thankful. Moments to forgive our stumbles and erase regrets. As the sun warms your skin and the fresh air blows your hair in the breeze and your thoughts start like a rolodex of rotating memories. Maybe for that one moment we breathe in that moment and that we just be. No demands, no expectations, no sorrow, no regret, just sit and be.
So yes I probably look like a weird, middle aged woman sitting here by her lonesome amongst the couples, the families, the ducks. But I don’t really care because I am taking a breath. So you take your breath today, you take that moment to be lost in nothing more than the sounds of nature. Life is too short to take for granted the moments and people we are blessed with. I hope that the people in my life know they matter and I hope that there is a portion of me that matters to them. That is all we can ask is to matter and be told we matter. And I guess most of all that we matter to ourselves. So just take a breath, tye world will continue if the schedule is altered, the world doesn’t care if you take that breath, so take it!
