On Waiting For the Race to Start for One Year…or Stopping to Smell the Roses

Sometimes I like to lay on my bed, with my watch against my ear, and just listen to the ticking.

I think it's because it is just such a soothing sound.  It's not really so much the thought that time is always moving, as it is just slowing down and concentrating on one thing.  The tick…tick…tick…tick.

It's weird how something that is always moving, always going, can make me slow down.  I'm not one of those people who is constantly going, never stopping to enjoy life.  I am either going fast, or super slow.  No happy medium.  And when I am going slow, I wish that life would hurry up and go faster.

Right now, I want to get to on or around July 2nd, so my nephew will finally be here.  I want to get to training camp on July 14th, so I can finally, finally meet my squad in real life.  I want to get to September so I can finally, finally leave for the World Race.  I want to get to next August so I can return from the Race, so we can have our own place again, where our cats can live with us, and I can have space to take out my creative, Pinterest-inspired energy.

But why am I using up all of this energy worrying about the good things to come, that I miss the good things now? 

I spent a good amount of my childhood wishing that I was older.  Wishing that I was older and cooler like my sister.  And when I finally did reach that coveted age, it felt just the same.  There was always something to wish for.

I am a big advocate for enjoying the moment.  Stopping to smell the roses.  I really am.  But, like I suspect we all are about some things, I fail alot in the implementation of the ideal.

I had a dream last night, that I was working at my old job at the Humane Society, and I was driving my beloved Jetta (who is no more :[  ).  It felt right but at the same time not quite right.  They were both things that I loved at one point, but towards the end, whether it was because of difficult situations at work, or a car that was on it's last leg, I found myself wishing for something else.  And now that I have something else, I find myself wishing for the shelter and the Jetta.

I can't live my life this way.  I just can't. 

God created seasons, including seasons of life, on purpose.  Summer needs spring to grow the flowers, so it can sustain them.  It also needs fall to give it rest from the hard work it has done.  Fall needs winter to finish what it started.  And winter needs spring to bring color back. 

Each season, even if it is harder or more boring than what is to come or has already been, is absolutely essential, whether it is beneficial forwards or backwards. 

Although this season of waiting for the World Race has been long and hard, it has also been wonderful.

We have gotten to spend loads of time with Josh's family that we otherwise would not have been able to.  I got to reconnect with my friends at Hobby Lobby when I went back to work there after being fired from the shelter for being caught in the middle of office politics.  I got to nanny two beautiful little girls.  If we were still leaving for the Race in July, we would be launching July 3rd.  My nephew is due July 2nd, which wouldn't leave a big window to be there.  Now I get to be there, work schedule permitting.  And I get to be here for his first few months.

In this season I have learned patience, faith, trust, to be a better communicator, how to edit videos, how to live with less things in less space, how to live without my cats, and tons more.

Normally I would end this blog by saying I can't wait to see what I learn next.  But the truth is, just from writing this I have been learning and processing.  As I sit here, eating my Ben & Jerry's, as Josh is folding his laundry, I'm happy to be where I am.  🙂