Have you ever sat in a chair and all of the sudden you feel like someone just turned on the wave pool at the waterpark?
I remember, as a father, taking my daughters to the waterpark until it was requested that they get dropped off at the entrance. In regards to being out in public, I determined a few years back that there were certain stages that many parents go through when it comes to them and their children.
The first stage is that when they are young it’s ok and necessary to just be with them. (I can’t emphasize the word “necessary” enough.)
The second stage is that they want their space… it can vacillate from being in the same store, but not the same department, to just being in the same mall building. It’s a yoyo experience.
The third stage is “hey, can you drop us off at the door.” It is at this stage that the art of negotiation begins because somewhere along the way someone didn’t mention that time apart is expected. So, there is the negotiation of “check-in” times.
The next stage, and I am still under the impression that this is the last stage, is when you hear in the distant part of the house that usually originates from the front door area an announcement. It is the announcement that “someone” is going out with their friends to go shopping. Now we all know that “shopping” is code for “I am going out”; however, no parent wants to hear that phrase nor does a teenager usually utter those words. The reason no one says ”I am going out”? It is because they know those words unleashes a barrage of questions from any parental unit. For a teenager to make the mistake of saying that “I am going out” means there will be an immediate appearance of mom or dad asking questions like “what are you going to be doing?”, “what time will you be home?”, and the one that opens another level of interrogation…”who are you going with?”
Settling into my chair this morning, I realize not only will I not have those dialogues with my daughters again but I also won’t have January 1st through the 8th of 2014 either. Before I sat down, I whimsically thought to myself… hey fifty more weeks before Christmas. I agree that it is way too early to be thinking about something that we just celebrated but in many ways isn’t that how we think?
Life has a way of being dissolved into benchmarks of time called “occasions”. Let’s be honest with ourselves.
As a student, I have already had a discussion in one of my classes about spring break. Also, I have become more accustomed to looking at my class schedule and measuring out how much time I have before my first paper is due. I will even admit to looking at the summer schedule of classes when I have just barely started a new semester.
As families, you might already be planning a family vacation this year. Or you have talked about the children’s sports season coming to a close and when is the next one beginning? We seem to be always wanting to engaged with the next step; while we are still in mid stride with the present.
Turn on the wave pool… I sat in my chair this morning and I almost immediately felt overwhelmed. I wasn’t overwhelmed with the present. No, it just seems that the whispers of the past and the taunting of the future seem to be joining in a chorus of some song of dissonance. It almost sounds like an orchestra that is going through their warming up session prior to the first movement.
As I sit here in my chair writing and imagining all that is going on, I begin to smile. I smile because right after the musical warm up there is something amazing that happens… silence. Then a tapping of the baton… and then it begins.
We all have these moments. We hear the past… the questions… the discovered answers… the judgment… the validation… the failures… the successes. We look at the future and wonder what it is really going to look like. We wonder what surprises await us. For some of us, it is a new life with a career that we are passionate about. For others, we wonder if we will find love. For others, we wonder if an illness will return. All of these past and future ponderings are just warming up sessions. The past is exactly that… the past. We left its presence and it is a heavy “reference book of life” that is not supposed to be taken home. The future? It is a song that is yet to be written. The crescendos cannot be played until the tempo has been discovered.
Let this morning be a moment of time when the music of the present is being heard. We need that moment of silence… a period of time that we hear the beating of our own heart… for our heart is the baton that leads our own rhythm.
Be still… let the sound of your heartbeat lead you on your path… breaking script… Namaste
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