This morning I got up early, before the rest of the house, as usual. Fed Mr. Bruce, made my tea, started the laundry, made salad and baked cookies. We will be out most of today so I need to have enough snax and lunch ready to take with us. I fed the birds, took my vitamins. As each child woke up I hugged them and confirmed their morning toast order. I checked my email on my way through the livingroom. Then as I stood buttering their toast I tried to process the news I had just read.

A childhood friend's mother has just died, my email told me. And I recalled lunches in their kitchen, sleepovers at their neat house in the woods, her mother's voice as she lamented my friend for not doing her chores or laughing at my friend's jokes. I can see her husband, such a great dad, and how they were always together, partners, in life, in businesss and in caring for each other and their daughters. They were one of my 'dream' families, you know, the ones you wish you belonged to when your own was driving you nuts. And now she is gone. My heart aches for my friend, whom I haven't chatted with in 15 years. For her sister, her sweet daughters, and for her father, who has lost his partner, his best friend. It's just hard, all around.

And I stood their buttering, thinking of how stressed out I can get trying to show my loved ones that I care, to honour my friends, to try to do what I can for those in my big, gregarious family of people. And how much I stress about living my life 'right'. That I want to arrive at my final days feeling that I spent my life well, I did what I hoped and did not waste a minute. When will I have that career I dreamed of, when will I travel like I planned to in high school, when will I get all those books read? Yet each day I am taken over by the minutae, the details of what, when, how now. And that focus is lost. You get lost in your life, no matter how much you try to remember the big picture. But maybe that is not such a bad thing. To live constantly trying to shift your focus, trying to be sure you remember what really matters, is hard. It can really stress a gal out. And maybe being lost in your life is the same thing. Instead of focusing on the bigger picture, the big to do list, the forever-looking-ahead-to-be-sure-you've-got-it-all-lined-up-so-when-you-look-back-it's-a-life-well-spent thing can make you miss it, your life. Can make you forget what is going on now, how much you love it, or not, but that this is it, the life you've got. It could all be over tomorrow, or in 30 years. Maybe living in these days, getting lost in the tiny details and distracted by the toast crumbs is okay. It's being present, now, when that life you keep worrying about is happening right in front of you.


It's something worth remembering.






xoxo

C