The Flight of Time
This past weekend, my husband and I went to our granddaughter’s pre-k graduation. I was thinking as we were driving that it was only a little while ago that we were driving our kids to school, and I am sure that the next thing we know, we will be driving to see our granddaughter graduate from high school. It has already been nine years since my youngest, my son, drove off to College Station to go to New Student Conference.
Meanwhile, my friend has been burning up the road to Houston to attend all of the senior year events of her three (triplets) grandchildren. My heart hurts for their parents. I had six or seven years between launching my kids off into the world, and it was still so tough to let that youngest one go, but all of them at once?
My granddaughter wanted to have Graduation Lunch at Bill Miller’s Barbecue—evidently it is a popular place among the five-year-olds in her area as we saw more of her fellow graduates there. My daughter showed us the proofs of the graduation portraits a professional photographer had taken and commented that she was a sucker for that sort of thing and would probably buy the digital copies of all of them. She said every time the photographer shows up at school, it costs her a lot of money. Her mother-in-law and I told her she was doing the right thing because childhood flies by.
Historically, I have never liked having my picture taken. As a result, I have very few pictures of myself from years past. These days I find myself thinking about that girl I was many years ago and kind of missing her. I wish she had let herself be photographed more. A couple of years ago one of my college roommates found some pictures of me she had taken. In one I was wearing a sundress I had made of red fabric with tigers printed on it. It was rayon fabric, which is very fluid and drape-y, a pain to cut and sew but so nice to wear. I have been sewing clothes again lately. Just last night I was cutting out a new top with the very scissors I likely used to cut out that red tiger-printed fabric. I had someone sharpen them several years ago and some of the chrome flaked off, so, like me, they look a little different now, but they still work.
The way of the world is that we are encouraged to always be thinking ahead and never to be still in the moment. There is certainly a need to think and plan for the future, but as many have said, we are often so busy ticking things off our to-do lists that we forget to live life right now. These days, I see the word “mindful” to represent taking the time to be present in the moment instead of wrapped up inside our heads. I wish I had learned to be mindful years ago, but it is never too late to start.