I'm not a person who documents things. If you were to ask me last year, or even last week, I would say that I like to live in the moment and not do anything that might distract me from being fully present in that moment. I guess in theory it works nicely, and yet, I have to admit that I'm a little bummed when major milestones pass me by and all I have is a memory. I lived in East Africa for 6 months about 18 years ago and if I'm lucky have one album of some very mediocre photos. I was hell bent on not being "that" tourist-I was going to just "live it". The same is somewhat true with my 2 beautiful children. I have some smatterings of their 4 and 6 year old lives.
Fast forward to now. Here I am blogging....wierd, I know. The things is, it has dawned on me in a rather large way recently, that moments are are doing nothing but passing ....in a good way. But, they are really, really extrordinary and sweet. I can't let them go passively anymore. So this is for my kids. This is for them to know, years down the line that we shared some magical moments together....definately everyday. I won't ever pretend that they were rosy and perfect. I can however profess to having been present.
The moment that did it for me was this one: Georgia who is 4 1/2 going on 30 is convinced she wants to learn to ride her bike without training wheels. I'm glad for her, bummed for me....lots of running up and down hills holding on at speeds I don't do so well anymore. Yesterday, she is grunting as she pedals up hill and I am sweating as I hold on to her. She says to me, in this voice that is all at once fearful and wise, "mommy, you just haveto keep looking straight ahead so your heart forgets about falling".
I knew in that moment, that at the tender age of 4 1/2 she had stubled across something quite profound. And yet, there is more. No matter our age or stage in life, I think we all are afraid of falling to some degree. We go through our days, with our heads up, trying to maintain our balance, trying to do what we can to save ourselves from pain or vulnerability. On some level, this is good-it's survival. Yet I would love my little girl's next chapter to read something like this, "I won't worry too much about falling, at least not so much that I don't get on my bike. I know that if I fall, I'll pick up my bike and get back on and ride".
Falling is part of riding. And I don't think our hearts truly ever forget, no matter how hard we will them to. But I think we learn as we go, that in order to live fully we have to get comfortable with bruises and scratches on our knees (and our hearts).
