These Are the Days of...

Recently I read a book by Emily Freeman called Simply Tuesday, about embracing the mundane and fully living day to day. She chose Tuesday because it is the one day of the week that goes unnoticed. We all hate Monday, Wednesday we're halfway through, Thursday we're looking forward to Friday... you get the drift.

I've been reminded over and over these past couple of weeks of a quote "The days are long but the years are short." I've read various twists on this quote, most recently in the work of Gretchen Rubin (author of The Happiness Project and Happier at Home; check back for my review of Better Than Before in a couple of weeks).  As I've gotten older, I'm finding that sometimes my days are very long, but just as often my days, months, and years are all short!!! As we get sucked into the mundane, time seems to fly but stand still at the same time,  which is confusing and at times overwhelming.

Embracing the mundane, learning to appreciate the here and now, helps us to freeze every moment so that even though our days and months and years are short, we're fully living them. Freeman talks about living in a season and fully appreciating it, even if it seems small and ordinary, because life is lived in the ordinary. One thing she suggests doing is to create a "these are the days of" list... to help one chronicle just what the days consist of.

When I read that, my mind immediately drifted back to when Caleb was three years old. Dr. Plumb led the worship at our church, and his favorite song for her to sing was "These Are the Days of Elijah." We had that song on a CD and we'd play it over and over in the car. My little one would say, "Ok, Mommy. Raise your hands and pretend you're Dr. Plumb."

It brings a smile to my face just thinking about it, but also reminds me of just how short the years are, because that seems like yesterday. Those were days of car seats and Dora the Explorer and bedtime stories and cars lined up on bleachers and pews and goldfish crackers in ziplock baggies and sippy cups full of koolaid or juice.

Today, those days have been replaced with:
- Laundry piling up faster than I can put it away.
-The bouncing of basketballs on hard wood floors, and the sound of whistles blowing and "Go! Go!"
-Gray skies with just a hint of blue peeking through as the wind whips through my hair on the top of Papaw's ridge.
-Text messages going unanswered but facebook posts that make a Mama proud.
-Just as many moments of drama as jackets are lost and pops are spilt and early mornings are rough.
-Melody's laugh/cry because she doesn't really know what she wants
-Lecture notes and creating exams and rewriting curriculum
-Trying to figure out who I am... and what that even means.
-Putting off time in God's Word because it's something that I look forward to and I can count it as a reward when I put up a basket of laundry.
-Forcing myself to get on the treadmill and then finding I almost enjoy it about a mile in.
-Fighting the urge to get mad at myself as I step on the scale and see the number go up a little, even though subconsciously I know the next day it will probably balance back out.
-Will playing in McDonald's play place
-Looking at Kami across Mom and Dad's living room as I think back to yesterday and imagine her graduating college in a few months.
-Lots of Diet Coke
-Cereal for supper
-Dreading the spring coming because January means I have to start working on my research project for my DNP... while at the same time knowing that I shouldn't dread it.
-Learning to love long and give grace... even to myself
-Thinking ahead to the coming year
-Reflecting on the past year and what I've learned... what I've experienced and how that has shaped me today
-Messy cars and messy houses and messy lives because we are living, and running, and experiencing, and doing
-Trying to balance all that doing with just being
-Hope

Tomorrow I'll ride on a bus with a bunch of high school girls to Northern Kentucky. I'm betting the bus ride there will be quiet, because like their coach's wife, most of them don't like to get up early in the morning. I'll listen to them laugh and talk and sing. We'll stop and eat and then I'll hear those basketballs bouncing and tennis shoes squeaking on that hardwood floor. I'll sit with a book next to me and read during timeouts and half time.

The day will be long, two games and many miles traveled.

But the years... they are short. Before we know it, this season will be over and we'll be looking ahead to summer break. This group of seniors will graduate and time will just keep marching on...

And if I don't soak it all in, it'll be gone.

Unappreciated.

Unacknowledged.

May we always cling to the realization that today will never come again, so we should make the most of it. May we always love those around us hard, and make sure they know that we love them. And may we always appreciate these days for what they are... precious gifts.