The Present is a Gift

It sounds odd to say, but I don't live in the present much.  By temperament, I tend to be very future-oriented: making plans, recalibrating my aspirations, playing out scenarios.  I also have a deep appreciation for the past, whether valuing self-reflection on lessons learned or steeping myself in history and biography.  

The present, not so much.  Of course, the present is all we have.  This is particularly true for parenting, where past and future pull at us and we must (or at least I feel like I need to work extra hard to) reclaim the primacy of the present.

 

 

What parent hasn't gone down a rabbit hole of looking at old pictures and cherishing when their kids were younger?  I definitely do this a lot.  And I'm also guilty of looking ahead in their lives, wondering what their teenage and college and career selves will be like, and truth be told daydreaming a lot about what Amy and my life will look like when we're not frantically juggling hard jobs and young kids.

In light of those pulls, I have to remind myself that today is literally the only time our kids will be exactly this age.  And every age is special, because our kids are special and our relationship with them is special.  What a remarkable and unique thing the present is.  May we savor it for the gift that it is to us.