Then And Now

I'm not a good scrapbooker. No time. Sam has a great scrapbook that covers the first 18 months of her life. After that? Zip. Nothing scrapped or booked from that time on. But, I am successful at writing down dates and ages on anything I save. It's my mental stamp to record what they were like. Once I write on the back, it gets shoved in a nicely labeled bin. It's my 'someday' project. 'Someday' just never rolls around.

I'm redoing Sam's room and wanted to frame a few things. So, I pulled out her 'someday' bin. It's like dumping Time on the floor. Years and years of her life tumbled out of that bin. Looking through it all brought back flashes of a different season of life.

One of my favorites amongst her piles, was this picture:

I looked at it's label-- November 2000, age 4. I even took the time to write down that Sam had told me this was a picture of our house.

At that time, I had only 2 kids. Life felt like one continuous cycle of taking care of little people. I remember feeling like I would be stuck in that stage forever. I dreamed of the day where everyone could feed themselves and get dressed without assistance. I tried to enjoy that stage of life, but I found myself wishing for a future time.

My Now has suddenly become that time. Back Then I longed for it. Now it's here. Sam no longer colors pictures for me to place on the fridge. Everyone in my house can dress and feed themselves. Now has it's advantages. But, looking back, Then did too. It was just really hard to see.

Maybe my perspective needs adjusting. Nothing major, just a slight tilt in the angle. The challenge isn't to survive the day-to-day. That's just a given for any parent. I really think it's more about finding the ability to See the ordinary as extraordinary.

So much of our daily cycle turns into just that. A cycle. What we do and our daily living becomes so routine it fades into a 'someday' pile. And before we know it, our Then becomes Now. Children who once drew stick houses become teenagers who text instead of talk. Ages and trials change, but the day-to-day is ever present. Never changing.

Maybe the trick to Seeing is knowing that there will always be a 'day-to-day'. We will always be living in our ordinary, daily routine, no matter it's shape, size or kid's ages. With that knowledge, the ordinary suddenly becomes our permanent focus. Why? Because we know it will always be there. And in that light, my daily ordinary looks just a little bit more extraordinary.

Then and Now. They are one in the same.

'Someday' doesn't look so far away after all.