Present

What is it about our human nature that has so much difficulty appreciating, savoring, simmering, relishing, soaking in the present?  Where we are at?  Who we are?  Right at that exact moment.

It starts so young.  From the time we realize there are others older and "better" than us at certain things, we just want to be there.

Our neighbor girl is 5 years old, soon to be 6.  Elyse adores her.  While driving in the car Elyse talked over and over about how she would be 5 soon (she just turned 3 in June) and all the things she could do once she was 5 and how she would be just like neighbor girl.  I figured it was a good time to plug in life and math lessons and I explained to her that when she was 5, said neighbor girl would be 7.  Elyse began to whimper that neighbor girl was going to be "so mad" at her for not being 5.  Until then I didn't know she even knew what the word "mad" was.  We use phrases like "I'm having a hard time", "that hurts me", "I'm upset", "I'm frustrated"......mad?  For not being 5?

I struggle when conversations like this come up because I don't know how to relay the wisdom that seems to only come from experience.  What it means to be what Matt and I call "a moments person".  Someone who looks for the best in every moment and tries their hardest to be present in it, knowing they won't get it back and that it often holds so many hidden gifts that you have to be looking just right to see.

I went through the standard, "I love you being 3 because that's exactly where and who you need to be right now", "God made you to be 3 today", "now that you're 3 you are able to do x, y, and z that you couldn't at 2 and if you skipped right to 5 who knows what you would miss out on."  I added the classic, "You're growing up so quick already, mommy doesn't want it rushed any faster."  Obviously that last statement was more for me than her.

Truth is I remember being 5 and wanting to be 10 so I could be in the double digits.  At 10 I wanted to be 13 because then you're a teenager and I was old enough to get my ears pierced.  At 13, with earrings, I wanted to be 15 so I could drive and then 16 so I could drive alone.  Then, who doesn't want to be 18 and by a lotto ticket, have no curfew, cast a vote and move out if they could.  At 18 I wanted to be 21 because, well, I could get into any place anytime.  The last one for me was 25.  At the time (not sure if it's the case now) you had to be 25 to rent a car, perhaps even a hotel room, I'm not sure.  But at 25 there was nothing I couldn't do.  At 25 I'd be a real adult, yeah, 25, that was prime.  But what then?  Turning 26 was fine but 27....I dreaded the very thought..  Ask anyone who knows me well and I feared turning 27 more than turning 30 or even 40.  There was just something about 27 that for me was basically the beginning of the end.  It just didn't sound young anymore.  It was old enough that you were expected to be responsible (which I was) but young enough that you really didn't have a clue (which I didn't).  27 was just weird for me.  It plagued me so much in my youth that I had actually convinced myself that it was the age that I would die.  By the time that birthday rolled around I knew better, but I still enjoyed saying goodbye to 27 and welcoming 28 during my 9th month of pregnancy with Elyse.

So much time was spent rushing the years ahead that now, at 31, I just want it to slow down.  I wanted to glance in my rear-view mirror and tell Elyse that these years that feel so long to her are really just a blink in our time here.  That everyday when she talks about wanting to be 5, she's missing out on what 3 can be for her that day.  After all, if she were 5 she would be in school right then and not with mommy in the car.  But no, she just wants to be 5.

As I watched her climb naked into her water table this afternoon, giggle at a pretend monster to help settle her fears, pick at her food, cuddle with her snuggie, and wear big cups as swimming shoes in the bath, I wanted to grab her, hold her, squeeze her into realizing that being exactly where she is is the best.  Not because life is so great right now and it will never be any better, not because today was perfect, but because every day and every birthday will be hard if she doesn't appreciate the now.  There is a gift in it.  Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's so hard to see that the only way it's brought to light is on your knees.....but there's a gift right there and you just don't want to miss it.

That's not how the conversation went.  How could it?  Her biggest fear is the dark and greatest moment is a Tic-Tac.  I actually wonder if she would pick turning 5 over a Tic-Tac now that I think about it.  Said neighbor girl would really be upset then.