don't blink !!!

my favourite line

 in judd apatow's movie "this is 40' goes like this,

grandma molly is wishing debbie a happy 40th birthday and says...

" i remember when i was 40, then i blinked 

and there i was,  going to be 90...

my god, where did it go?

one day, you are going to blink and your're gonna be 90!!!

i'm telling you..

i'm warning you...

don't blink!  don't blink!"

i laughed so hard throughout this movie 

(i would definitely recommend it for adult viewing)... 

Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann were so quick with their lines and delivery was perfect.

now about this blinking issue...
time does fly, and it seems to speed by the fastest when you have children.

like all mothers, i kept keepsakes of my children's babyhood.

these were their very first shoes.

both my son and my daughter, though they are almost three years apart, 
took their turn wearing them.

although both took their first steps barefooted, 
i'm sure they proceeded in their first toddling adventures with these on.

today, over sixteen and thirteen years later, they are sporting these... 
their shoe sizes are bigger than mine !!!

where did those years go?
although i have reels and reels of memories of our lives together 
stored in my head and in my heart, 

i try and stay focused on the here and now 
so i don't miss this time of their teenage lives.

eckhart tolle, author of 'the power of now" says 
there is no past and and no future, 
only the now.  

he explains that we perceive our lives like a series of points in time because circumstances are changing so fast that the speed gives an illusion of sequencing of numerous events ,,, when in reality it is just one moment continually evolving.

so when and if we reach our 90s, (like grandma molly in the movie), it may seem like we blinked away 50 years of living but in reality we are still in that same unending moment of now.

it took me a while to get this... 
this 'now' business is simple to understand but difficult to practise

and i'm still working through a ton of questions...

so back to the problem with blinking....

by practising being in the now, i capture/experience/savour
 the changing and evolving of life around me 
at each millimoment.

i practise, so i can learn to let go of the past 
(yes, that includes my childhood and my children's childhood)

and not worry about the future 
(this is even harder as a mother).

the beauty of this practise 

is that the act of blinking becomes art of letting go (and vise versa)

if you practise savouring the moment, letting go becomes easy because after the blink comes more of the same moment (sometimes the circumstances are better, sometimes worse).

but if your are not fully in the now... everything becomes a blur and letting go becomes so painful because your psyche/soul is not ready to move on.

so, after all this yakity-yak about letting go, 

you are probably asking why have i hung on to those little shoes????

to tell you the truth... i really don't know... 
maybe i kept them because there was no reason for me to let them go.

 if someone needed the shoes, i would probably give them up, 

though it wouldn't be an easy parting.

(i told you this was hard !!!!)

erica

xoxo