last night i was thinking about the pacing of life and our tendency toward discontent; how we can easily spend too much of ourselves in missing the past or yearning for the future.
it was a bit after nine. the younger kiddos were in bed, and i was listening to
love's playlist while folding tees and socks still warm from the dryer. mostly i was filling the time till the hubby came home from the ER with our ten year old son.
the boys had basketball evaluations earlier last night, and partway through, bee jumped up and briefly hung on a support bar of one of the portable basketball goals. turns out the goal wasn't properly weighted down, and the entire thing tipped and fell on him. he hit the ground first, knocking a knot into the back of his head, then the goal came crashing down on the side of his skull.
he cried a lot, and it's funny how that's a relief: that he's conscious and has breath and enough cognizance to cry. he couldn't remember what happened, didn't even know where he was. the right side of his head, over the temple, was swollen in a way that makes a mother's stomach swoop and sicken.
at ten, bee's my oldest, and i have the unfortunate tendency to treat him like a mini-adult. but in times like this i see starkly--almost jarringly--just how small he still is.
so. back to the sleeping siblings and lovelyn's music, and laundry softened with dryer sheets. while i was folding, the song "you're gonna miss this" by trace adkins came on, and it got me to thinking. the lyrics delineate a girl who can't wait to graduate, can't wait to move out of her starter newlywed home, can't wait till the kids have outgrown their screaming, and she's told over and again to slow down...that someday she'll miss this.
i'm not sure why we do it, why we live so much of today rushing off for something better, why we only appreciate the joys of right now in retrospect.
certainly, i hope i'm ever anticipating the day, the hour, that God makes all things new. when horror and decay and brokenness are done.
but as long as i am a resident of this earth, i don't want to invest my attention in the imagined gains of twenty years from now, or the lost treasures of a decade past. i'd like to be very deliberate about recognizing and celebrating the richness of today.
so right now, i am hugely grateful for:
-play-dough mornings with my littlest
-these four happy children, and every hour i've been given with them
-a husband who values the valuable
-girlfriends who'd turn cartwheels in a field with me
-a warm, safe home with enough food to grow our kiddos
-living in a place that knows peace
-bee's zany jokes
-zee's intuitive sensitivity
-how em still loves to snuggle and the way he laughs from this place in the back of his throat
-elle's unabashed singing, complete with dance moves
-great literature and autumn hues and the way a violin can sound so full and lonely
and well, i could go on for quite a while, eh? as i'd guess could most of you.
would you do me a favor? add to my blessing by telling me--in a comment or an email--what your grateful list looks like today.
grazie, i miei amici. grazie.
addendum: bee's okay, by the way. he's got a massive hematoma (blood pooling on the outside of his skull) and a concussion (a brain bruise), and we're to keep an eye on him to rule out the very slight potential of continued internal bleeding, but the preliminary reading of his CAT scan looked fine.